


Good Endings

by Gunney



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8887870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunney/pseuds/Gunney
Summary: Starsky and Hutch writers were always good at cutting to the good stuff. This is a little bit of that. Stories with none of the boring build up. Right into the action. Enjoy!





	1. Fireball

Starsky

Hutch was at the wheel of the Torino. His knuckles were white as the stripe on the side, his face slick with sweat. His upper lip stiff with determination. I couldn't see it, locked in the trunk and all, but I could imagine the look of fear and concentration on his face. This was no pleasure drive.

I tried to see the positive in the situation. What my partner frequently called the striped tomato had to have looked impressive speeding down the docks engulfed in flames. I'd worked my hands free of the ropes and felt around the inside of the trunk enough to know that the back was just as hot and on fire as the engine had to be.

I didn't know if Hutch knew that I was also lying over top of the gas tank. He'd been shouting reassurances from the moment he figured out that I was locked in the trunk, but he'd gone silent once we hit the docks. In my mind's eye I could see the dock workers dodging and the piles of crates, parked cranes and dollies and that. Plenty of obstacles to drive around. Required greater concentration.

We hit something and I flew up, the side of my face and my already abused left arm contacting the red hot trunk for a little too long. It hurt, like the world's worst sunburn. It made me miss my leather jacket. I'd had it on before I'd been knocked out and stuffed into the trunk. They must have stolen it. Damn kids.

The sound of the boards against the tires turned into this staccato whump, whump, whump. The sound of nothing but air under the wood of the pier. It'd been my idea to go to a car wash. Have an attendant hose the car down. Or even a fire station. Hutch had decided that our fastest route was to drive into the ocean.

I was beginning to secretly suspect that this was his way of forever ridding me of my beloved car when we went airborne.

Hutch shouted something, probably telling me to hang on. There was nothing I could hang on to. I floated for a bit then slammed into the wall in front of me. My knees, elbow and face took most of the impact and I instantly felt a gush of warm and wet from my nose.

Then the heat was dying, cool water was seeping into the cloth interior. No…not cool. Cold. Freezing water. I banged a fist against the one wall of the trunk that wasn't going to burn me. "Hutch!"

Nothing but the gurgle of water, and waves hitting the metal side and sighing with steam. I'd taken a hard hit against the front of the trunk.

What if Hutch had been knocked out? Thrown against the windshield and now we were sinking…and he was drowning.

I banged harder, screaming his name over and over. The blood from my nose was splattering over my lips. It was harder to breathe and the water was collecting, rising by inches.

"Hutchinson, you dummy, cars don't float!"

I reached around until I had the tire iron and started pounding on the trunk latch. Maybe the fire had weakened it and compromised the integrity of the latch. Maybe I could pop it open somehow. Maybe trunks should have an emergency release catch on the inside in case this sort of thing happened again.

"This sort of thing…" Bang, bang! "A cop getting knocked out by hoodlums and stuffed in the trunk of his car." Bang! Bang, bang! "Cause that sort of stuff happens all the time."

I was panting. Either the pain in my head, or my nose, or the water rising, was forcing the air out of my lungs faster than I liked and I felt dizzy. "Hutch!"

Bang, Bang, Bang, Thud!

I stopped. Gasped as I lay in the cold wet, feeling the sea water lap around my ears, sick to my stomach from the blood I was forced to swallow. But I'd definitely heard a thud. "Hutch!?"

Thud, Thud.

"Hutch!" I couldn't help the high pitched laugh of glee and pounded harder at the trunk latch. I could hear scratches and the screech of metal straining against metal on the other side of my prison. Somebody trying as hard as I was to get me out.

I thought about what that would mean. We were underwater, which meant that what little air I had left would disappear entirely once that trunk opened up. I'd been tossed around by water enough times to know that it could do a lot of damage.

I gave the trunk latch a few more hard whacks and backed against the front wall of the trunk, my lungs working twice as hard as before. There was nothing in the trunk to protect me from a sudden wave of salt water. Most of what was in the trunk was going to come with that wall of water to crush me. I had to protect my head and could only think of one way to do it.

Hutch

The dock workers had moved fast. I'd never seen a better crew of guys in my life. Even as the Torino sped toward the water I could see a foreman directing a crane to follow us. Hitting the water hurt. I'd ducked down on the seat in the last moment to avoid the glass from the windshield and ended up slammed under the dash.

The car sank. I thought I heard Starsk screaming from the trunk and grabbed the crowbar from under the passenger seat just as the passenger compartment filled with water. I swam through an open window and surfaced for a second before gasping for air and going back down. Terrified that I would lose the car. Lose Starsky.

My head was throbbing as I struggled deeper down, found the trunk, heard the pounding from the inside. I dug the claw of the heavy iron into the top of the trunk but the water slowed my swing. I wouldn't have the leverage that Starsky had inside. I could hear him…vaguely, through the pound of the water on my eardrums. He was alive, conscious…aware that he was drowning.

I sank with the car, trying to wedge the crowbar into the tiny gap between the trunk and the tailgate, trying to fake the leverage that I needed to pry the trunk open. I was running out of air. My lungs were burning, but I couldn't risk surfacing again and losing the car.

I nearly had a heart attack when I felt something brush against my shoulder. My first thought was shark, barracuda…something with teeth.

I didn't expect two dock workers guiding the hook of a crane toward the underbelly of the car. I didn't know if the crane I'd seen could handle the weight of the waterlogged Torino, but I wasn't going to get the trunk open on my own.

And Starsky had stopped making noises. The shouts had stopped, and the sound of pounding. The trunk was still and I had to breathe.

One of the dock workers made the choice for me, dragging me up by the sleeve of my jacket. I watched the taillights of the Torino fade and choked on salt water, fighting the spasm of my diaphragm. We broke the surface and I immediately started to cough and retch. I would have drowned if the dock worker hadn't been holding my head up.

The moment my skin began to dry the burns came alive, worsened by the salt. There were some small blisters forming on my hands and my face felt tight and fragile. I could barely climb the ladder to the dock surface and by the time I got there I could only lie on the rough wood.

One of the men shouted, "Get me some fresh water! Blankets, towels. Come on guys move!"

"Am…amb…"

"Yeah buddy, yeah." He mumbled then shouted, "And somebody call an ambulance."

"Par…part…Starsk." Even my lips felt swollen and warm, the fire suddenly alive again against my skin. I tried to speak more clearly, saying his name. "Stars-ky. Partner."

"Partner…you got a partner we should call?"

"Trunk."

"Aw…Jezus." Then he had the same note of panic in his voice as I'd had, shouting at the men working to raise the Torino from the ocean. "This guy says there's somebody in the trunk!"

Voices answered, sounding distracted. I couldn't make them out and didn't want to try. I didn't want the bad news.

"Hey…hey, buddy, stay with me. Hey…are you guys cops?"

I shivered…the wind was blowing and the heat in my face and hands hadn't made it to the rest of my body. I was freezing and on fire at the same time. I managed a nod.

The dock worker shouted again for the blankets then said, "I thought I recognized that car."

I couldn't stop the smirk. Rarely before had I felt that Starsky's taste in cars would work to our advantage. Somehow, this time, it had. I needed him there, so that I could tell him. So that I could see the reassuring smug look on his face.

I shivered and spat water on the docks and tried to force my eyes open. My vision was swimming, but far ahead I could see a bright blue crane fishing for a giant red trout at the end of the pier. Reeling it in slowly, water rushing from the open pores of the windows. The men were cheering, gathered in a semi-circle as the crane slowly rotated, setting the car down nose first, guiding it onto its wheels again.

Scarred, streaked with black and still steaming, the Torino looked like a baked Russet potato on melted tires.

I had to be there. I wouldn't wait to have someone tell me, sadly, that my partner was dead. I had to be on my feet, by his side, one hundred percent certain that he was going to be okay. The dock worker fought me for two seconds before he saw something…maybe the look in my eyes, the determination on my face.

He called a buddy over and the both of them got me to my feet. It hurt, but I made it.

Men with tools were working on the trunk latch, one forcing it open with a long crowbar while the other took a torch to the metal. Fire…to save us from what fire had already done.

The trunk flew open before I could get there. I kept moving closer, watching as one fire reddened arm appeared, then a blue sneaker, a tuft of dark curly hair. He had blood down his face and the front of his shirt and his nose was swollen. Burns lanced up and down his left arm and the left side of his face. But his blue eyes were open. He met mine and color returned to his otherwise pale face.

Then I lost track of time, a blur of movement. Blankets and fresh water and crates being moved to get the two of us out of the sun.

We were waiting for the ambulance, Starsky leaning against my left side, head forward so that he didn't have to choke on the blood from his broken nose.

"Car wash."

"What?" I managed, trying to focus on anything but the pain of the burns.

"A car wash." Starsk enunciated through the swelling, tilting his head just enough to shoot one blue eyeball my way. "Or a fire station. A deep puddle." My partner's eye rolled back behind his eyelids and he winced. "None of those things occurred to you?"

So that's what he'd been shouting from the trunk. Once I'd latched onto the plan of driving the car into the ocean I'd ignored everything else. I was trying to remember whether or not we had passed any of those things when Starsky interrupted me with a cough.

"No…instead you drive my beautiful car into the ocean….off a…a twenty-foot high pier."

I rolled my eyes and closed them. Even my eyelids felt burned. "Hey, it worked, Starsk. Just let it go."

"You know what else would've worked? A fire hydrant."

"The car will be fine, Starsky…a blow dry and some paint."

"Leather seats, Hutch. Do you know what salt water does to leather seats?"

"The same thing it does to a leather jacket I would imagine." I mumbled, remembering a previous dunk in the ocean. He'd blamed me for that one too.

Starsky groaned and leaned his head on my shoulder.

The men who had reeled in the Torino had been fishing through the trunk and under the hood to make sure the fire was completely extinguished. I blinked when one of them easily lifted the extra tire out of the back.

"Did that come loose?"

"What?"

"The tire." I said, pointing at the one remaining whole wheel.

Starsky cleared his throat and his voice faltered for a moment. I wasn't sure if it was the broken nose or the sorrow for his ruined car. "I uh...I loosened it."

I turned my head carefully so that I could get a good look at my partner.

"Tire's got air in it." Starsky said, looking at me like that statement alone was supposed to explain it. "That trunk was gonna open up and all that water was gonna rush in. I figured I'd….float us to the top."

Starsky withered a little under a glare I hadn't intended. I was envisioning my partner, trapped in the trunk of his own car, desperately trying to save me with a tire...a tire that would have sunk the both of us to the ocean floor.

"That is the stupidest thing you've ever said."

Starsky gave a hurt look and protested, "You don't know that. It coulda worked. And if it weren't for your brilliant plan I wouldn't have needed to-"

"Tires don't float, Starsky!"

"How could you possibly know that? When have you ever tried to float with a tire? That's right, never! So don't sit there like some kind of living, breathing encyclopedia and tell me that tires don't float." Starsky had started jabbing at the air to emphasize his point. The move must have hurt him because he dropped into silence, trying to hide the wince.

I sighed and let my head rest back against the crate. The air around us was cool, the waterlogged cloths on my arms like heaven. It would hurt like the other place to move, but I could hear the ambulance siren getting closer.

"Do you wanna talk about how you got into the trunk...before the ambulance gets here?"

"No, I do not."

That was it. I'd hurt his feelings, forgetting that he'd already suffered a heap of embarrassment in just the first few hours of the morning. Attacked by a gang of teenaged boys, stuffed into the trunk of his own car, then the car was firebombed. All of it had happened in the amount of time it took me to duck into a restaurant for our breakfast.

And it had been my idea to park in the alley instead of on the street.

"I'm sorry I made you park in the alley."

"What?"

"I said...I'm sorry I made you park in that alley."

Starsky's head lifted and his eyes drifted open, probably thinking back over the past hour. He wobbled a bit but gave me a smile and said, "S'all good, partner." It came out "paht-nah".

A medic popped into view, squatting down to look us over before they wheeled a bed into our shelter. We must have looked a mess judging from the shock and sympathetic pain on his face. Ever the friendly one Starsky spoke up beside me.

"Hi there. Say listen, what's your name?"

"B-Billy."

"Billy...have you ever tried to float a tire?"

I groaned and rolled my eyes.


	2. Train

Train

Starsky

Every kid I grew up with, girls and boys, wanted a train for Christmas when we were five. It was all because of Johnny Yves, too. He'd had a train for his birthday two months before the blessed holiday, and since his parents were rich, he didn't just have a train. He had the tracks and the buildings and the drawbridge and the decoupling station and the little guy unloading barrels.

All the bells and whistles. All top of the line.

Everybody got to watch him play with his train set at his birthday party, green with envy. And then we went home and wrote out our letters to Santa, describing everything we wanted. Right down to the model number.

Guess who got a train for Christmas…

Johnny Yves. A Zephyr.

The rest of us got socks and underwear.

What I wouldn't have given for a pair of dry socks and underwear the day I finally drove a train.

An old steamer they called Dear Betsy had been running tourist excursions into the mountains. Hutch and I were undercover, me as a conductor and him as a steward, keeping an eye on a set of very expensive jewels that were being transported on that train.

The owner had expected bigger, burlier and more numerous company and wasn't too happy that only Hutch and I were assigned. I think, in the end, he got over it.

Hutch pretended that it didn't matter to him that we might each get a chance to drive Dear Betsy, but I could tell the little boy in him was delighted. Personally I took to the controls like I was born to them. The engineer was a sweet old guy named Tommy. He'd been driving trains since the time of steam, and hated diesels. Said they were taking the art and beauty out of train travel.

As we climbed into the mountains I had to agree with him. The trip was a dream. There was a ski lodge at the top of the mountain that was hosting the jeweler's convention. We'd be up there for two days, then head back down and see the jewels and the owner to the airport. Terrific!

Who would expect a gully washer and a mudslide just an hour after I had taken over the controls? I, of course, handled it like a master.

Hutch

Starsky was panicking. His knuckles were white on the controls, and he was grinding his teeth. Every few seconds he'd snap at me to stop shoveling coal. It'd taken a lot of convincing to get him to understand that we needed the steam. It was the steam that was powering the brakes. The brakes were the only thing keeping us from careening down the mountain backward.

The fireman normally assigned to Tommy had been sick for half-a-day before the storm started. Sick enough that Tommy had been concerned he wouldn't handle the final up-hill haul to the ski lodge. Starsk and I had been trading off on the job, Dave drooling over Tommy's shoulder any time the old man offered a mini-engineer lesson.

Then the storm started and Tommy got sick. I'd been on the shovel and had radioed to Starsky, the both of us getting Tommy out of the cab back into one of the cars. Thirty minutes later we'd noticed the wobble. I don't know how Starsk spotted it through the rain, but he slammed on the brakes and the train rattled to a stop. The tracks sixty feet ahead were buried under rubble.

That was the first time Starsky yelled at me to stop shoveling.

"We can't make it through that." He'd said.

I'd agreed, breathing hard. "We'll just have to back down."

"Back down!?"

"Yeah...down, backwards. Just...throw it in reverse."

"Wha- would you stop shoveling! How?"

"Tommy told ya...didn't he? Just throw that lever there...and uh...and that one."

Starsky

Hutch clearly didn't realize how many levers there were in front of me. I knew where the throttle was, and the brake. I knew where the lever for steam release was and the emergency stop cord. The whistle. The bell. Reverse had never been mentioned. "That's the brake….that's the throttle...that's-"

"What?" Hutch shouted, throwing off my process of elimination.

I grabbed one lever I wasn't sure about with my right hand, kept my left on the brake and yanked. The door to the firebox closed with a loud clang making the both of us jump.

Lightning flashed across the sky a second later and I looked up to see that not only were the tracks covered in mud and debris, but it was moving. A slow wave of sludge heading down the tracks toward us.

I opened the fire box and yanked on another unfamiliar lever.

Nothing bad happened so I eased off the brakes until I felt the engine bump against the coal car.

"Ha! There, ya see, reverse!" I shouted, feeling the tightening of my chest release a little. "Knew it all the time."

I adjusted the throttle and let go of the brake, wincing as the wheels and the rails and the whole engine complained.

"The clutch!"

"What?"

Hutch leaned in close to my ear and said, "The clutch."

"What clutch?"

"You didn't use the clutch."

"It's a train, you dummy, not a semi."

My partner was drenched by rain and sweat, leaning wearily on the coal shovel while he clung with one hand to the roof. "I'm pretty sure Tommy said something about a clutch."

I eased the throttle and started to apply the brakes again, counting levers and trying to guess at which one might be a clutch, if an engine had one, which I was sure it didn't.

"Look there's no clutch. That's the throttle, that's the brake, that's the-oaf!"

We hit something. Or something hit us. The engine rocked and the cars behind us jolted. Vaguely I could hear the screams of frightened passengers distantly behind us.

I activated the brakes fully and clung to the window, leaning out into the pounding rain. Blocks of light were scattered across the side of the railroad cut, shining through the windows of the cars. Each car looked like it was still firmly seated on the tracks. The curve of the cut prevented me from seeing the caboose.

The slow ooze of the mudslide was making its way into the shaft of light coming from the front of the engine. Before long we wouldn't have a choice about which direction we were traveling in. My heart was in my throat and I felt dizzy staring at the mess of levers that was, only an hour earlier, relatively familiar to me.

"Clutch...if there was a clutch I'd know about it..."

"Starsky!"

I heard the metallic scrape of the shovel against the cascade of coal in the hopper. Hutch was feeding the fire again, more frantic than before.

Never mind the clutch, I thought. We'll go backward in neutral if we have to. I operated the levers that I understood and the wheels spun, then caught on the wet rails.

Hutch

The slow mud slide had become a torrent. California was known for its unpredictable rain storms and the damage they could do, especially following a drought. Where there was one slide I knew there would be more. I'd felt more than a few impacts against the cars behind us and the hopper itself.

Getting clocked behind the ear by a falling stone convinced me that we had to move.

I started shoveling and with hunched resolution, Starsk threw a few levers. We were moving again. This time Starsky held the throttle in one hand and the brake in the other and stuck his head out the side of the cab to watch the bottom of the mountain rush up at us.

I shoveled coal and thought about the spectacularly fiery explosion we were going to end our lives in. Not with Starsk at the wheel of his treasured Torino, and not at the hands of some vengeful maniac, but in a steam train of all things.

When was the last time that a steam train had crashed in anything but the movies? And how many people survived that crash? As I bent for another shovel full of coal I thought about the diamonds that this coal would never have the chance to become. Jewels that we were supposed to be safely seeing to the top of the mountain.

The day had started out clear and beautiful. Sun, cool mountain air, everything that I remembered and loved about my childhood in the mid-west. There had been plenty of pleasant railroad cuts and side tracks that-

A side track…

"Side track!" I shouted.

Starsky

"What?"

"Side track. We go down far enough, we can get the engine onto a side track and out of this cut."

My partner, Kenneth Hutchison, was the planning type. He liked to ponder and then have a burst of eureka and build the machine and set it in motion. Don't get me wrong, plenty of his plans had gotten us out of jams. But there was a time when planning wasn't as good as just getting the heck outta of a place.

This side track idea sounded too much like a plan we didn't need. I tried to ignore him, focusing on the rush of rock and trees and brush and rain screaming by on either side of us. But Hutch wouldn't let up.

"Starsky, slow 'er down."

"I do that, we end up a mud sculpture."

"As long as we're in this cut we're a target for anything coming off that mountain." Hutch insisted swiping at his neck. There was blood there that I hadn't noticed before, but I didn't dare take my hand off the two levers controlling our rapid descent.

"Who's to say a side track isn't gonna get us into just as much trouble?"

"I think that's a risk we're going to have to take."

"I don't remember any side tracks!" I insisted, my voice cracking a little as a result of the shouting we'd been forced to do. The rumble of the debris was like an earthquake, and that's not a word that I use lightly.

Hutch felt his way toward the side of the cab, keeping both hands securely wrapped around something solid. There was no way to casually move around the engine without risking flying off the train all together.

"Slow it down." Hutch shouted again, facing me just long enough to make sure I'd heard him before he looked back to the squares of light chasing each other. I didn't like it, but I eased off the throttle, facing the gauges and waiting for our speed to get to a place where I could apply the brakes without snapping the lines.

The mud and the rain weren't going to slow. Higher up, against the slate gray of the sky I could make out large chunks of top soil breaking off the slope, and snowballing down the hill, taking fledgling trees with it.

"This isn't a good place to stop!" I shouted. At first I didn't think it strange that my partner didn't answer. Then I felt a gust of wind against my back, hitting my neck and sending a shiver down my spine. With it came a spray of mud and the clatter of stones on the cab roof. I turned to make sure Hutch hadn't been hit by more debris and found that I was alone in the cab.

"Hutch!" With the train still rolling I thrust my head through the window and stared at the track ahead, trying to spot the yellow jacket and striped cap that Ken had been wearing. Maybe he'd been knocked out of the cab by something, or had slipped on the slick metal floor. I rushed to the other side of the engine and squinted past the rain and the mud and the falling branches.

Nothing.

My heart throbbed in my chest and past my ears making it impossible to hear anything anymore. I scrambled to the hopper, slapped my hand down on the rail and leaned out in time to get a face full of pine needles. I closed my eyes against the whip of the branches then forced them open again, seeing nothing but cut rock and the sides of the cars behind the engine. They were starting to turn sharply to the right.

I lurched to the other side of the platform and looked back, barely catching the slick handrail that would keep me from flying off the engine. The cars were definitely curving, sharper than I remembered this section of track to be, and they were beginning to climb. The engine was responding with a strained groan and with dread in my throat I went to the throttle, opening it up a bit more. The steam gauge was fine for the moment but I would have to shovel soon.

Shovel coal, get the train to a level spot on this new side track, then go to find my partner. Hope he was still alive. Hope I hadn't somehow been responsible for crushing his body on the train tr-

Side track.

Hutch

I found the switch exactly forty-seven seconds before the caboose would have passed it. I'd been stumbling down the track at a jog, and kept going, using my momentum and body weight to flip the switch. I'd have bet money that it would be rusted and inoperable. That my next few minutes would be spent rushing after the train as it continued its slow descent.

I couldn't have been happier to have been wrong. The train slipped onto the side track like melting butter on toast. I couldn't stop the yelp of victory as the caboose, four passenger cars and the hopper and engine slid past me at a walking pace.

Starsky's astonished face caught my eye as he passed, looking like he'd run over a puppy. I yelped again and jogged toward the train, stumbling over the ballast and fallen rocks until I could latch on to the rail and pull myself up the high steps. Starsky was already slowing the engine and putting on the brakes. By the time I'd caught my breath he turned and squeezed the rest out of me in a bone crushing hug.

"Don't do that to me again." I heard him mumble. When he pushed away from me he took a second to look at the nick on my neck then shook a stern finger in my face and turned back to the gauges.

Both of us were forced into stunned silence as the avalanche of rock, water and fauna rumbled past the filtered light of the engine. It was like watching the earth being born, a volcano rising from the sea, or a new mountain breaking free. The landscape around us changed instantly.

"All because of a little rain." Starsky muttered.

We watched until the pace of the slide had slowed to a crawl, mesmerized by the power and fury of mother nature. I loaded a little more coal into the chute to keep the fire going and Starsky stepped down into the downpour and walked along the side track to the first car, checking on the passengers.

I stayed by the fire, grateful for its warmth, and was almost ready to fall asleep when I heard my partner call my name.

"What?" I shouted, sticking my head out into the cold.

Four cars back Starsky stood with a blanket covered Tommy on the platform of the caboose. My partner pointed emphatically at the recovering engineer then shouted, "I told you there wasn't a clutch on a train engine!"


	3. Typewriter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coworker of mine mentioned something that an infamous school chum did the school librarian. That is the inspiration for this piece.

Typewriter

Captain Dobey

Sergeant's David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson are two of the most talented cops I've had the pleasure to work with while serving on the police force. I'll never admit this to their faces. Not, at least, unless one or the other of them is on his deathbed.

They are that rare breed of man that operates best in the face of adversity. What they need to produce results is a captain that rides them hard and puts them away wet, if you'll pardon the expression. But I only learned this peculiar characteristic after I made the mistake of complimenting the two of them one too many times.

It'd been a spectacular week. They'd worked their way up a food chain of suspects, knocking 'em down and putting 'em away with stellar police work. Every "i" dotted, and every "t" crossed. For the first time in the career of their partnership I was getting daily reports, in triplicate, on my desk before I left for home.

That should have been my first clue. I should have put 2 and 2 together and realized that daily reports meant those two had too much time on their hands. But, like a fool, I considered it the turning over of a new leaf and was settling back into the idea of everything going right when...well..it started with Starsky.

At two in the morning on a Friday I got a call that someone had left a can of shaving cream, primed and loaded, in Starsky's desk. But instead of the sergeant getting a face full of foam, one of our night clerks got it in the eye while she was hunting for a sharpened pencil.

A harmless prank, but for a little eye irritation. I overlooked it of course, but I shouldn't have.

The next morning Starsky was at his desk, cleaning out the messy drawer and far too cheerful about it. Not only was he cheerful. He was helpful. Anytime one of my men so much as glanced at the coffee maker Starsky was up and offering them a cup of joe like a diner waitress.

Strange behavior, no doubt, but something that was eventually ignored. When Hutchinson arrived looking all together too cheerful himself, he received his own cup of coffee. Only Starsky had drilled a hole in the bottom of the cup and Hutchinson nearly burned a hole in his britches.

By the end of the day there were rumors flying around that Starsky had almost had his foot trampled by one of Hutchinson's tires, and Hutch, in return, couldn't locate his keys.

A harmless, live garter snake was reportedly hidden in Starky's bed, upsetting his weekend plans. Hutchinson's Sunday picnic with his girl came to an abrupt end when the sprinkler system at the municipal park was prematurely activated.

By Monday the two partners, normally able to trust each other with their lives, were walking paranoid circles around one another. Suddenly the reports were lagging, some of their street work was getting sloppy. I even got a call from one of their girlfriends, asking if I knew what was wrong with the two of them.

I'd had about enough myself and by Wednesday had ordered the two of them directly to my office the minute they stepped into the precinct. They seemed to know what was coming and spent most of the day out on the street, running down leads. In the end I never did talk to Starsky.

He'd taken a clout on the head while the two men were arresting two male mules dressed as old women. Starsky had been treated and taken home by his partner. I got a verbal report from Hutchinson while the man sat at their conjoined desks fiddling with his partner's typewriter.

We had a heart-to-heart, and I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that I expected the two to knock off the shenanigans. Hutch assured me that they were just blowing off steam and now that the case was picking up speed, there wouldn't be time for pranks.

I mostly believed him. But then Hutch had always been the better liar when the two weren't undercover. Neither of them would have ended up on traffic duty, and their case wouldn't have been closed, if it hadn't been for the F key.

My typewriter was on the blink. I'd made a dozen requisitions on a dozen different borrowed typewriters for the department to get me a new typewriter to no avail. I figure somebody down in supply thought they were clever and assumed that if I could type out a requisition I didn't need a new typewriter.

I borrowed Starsky's machine the day after I'd seen Hutchinson fiddling with it. I was two lines into the report when three of the keys exploded in my face. The requisition form caught on fire, sparks flew and the heat turned the rest of the percussion caps that Hutch had put under the keys into a popcorn show.

I say again, the man put percussion caps under the keys of Starky's typewriter. Both men should have been directing traffic until I retired so far as I was concerned, but the commissioner and others in his realm of authority seemed to think that anything longer than a week was a waste of departmental resources.

Like I say, they'd had a good couple of weeks.

It was while they were on traffic duty that they noticed the same car traveling in circles for most of the business day. One rainy afternoon they finally stopped the car and did a routine check. They found a traveling pharmacy and the second-in-command of the ring at the wheel. The bust was clean and the driver turned informer almighty quick.

They haven't exactly thanked me for it, but I did get an honorable mention on one of their reports.

Which were written out by hand, in triplicate.

I'll be damned if Starsky didn't have a new typewriter on his desk by the following Monday.


	4. Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I work in a library and I have to suffer from donations that are sometimes as bad, if not worse than those described in this story. Be kind to your librarians!

Library

Hutch

"This isn't police work."

"What are you talkin' about, Starsk. Of course it's police work."

My partner gave me a look of disgust that was worsened by the bloodshot eyes and running nose. He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shot for the umpteenth time that morning then let out a whopper of a sneeze.

I waded through another mold covered, reeking stack of old books, tossing each of them into the dumpster behind me with practiced precision, waiting for him to recover.

"These are books. That's a dumpster. This is a back alley. And that's a private library." Starsk muttered grumpily. "There are no bad guys or guns. We're not going to find any clues in here. Just mold, and dust and-achoo!"

I waited, wincing sympathetically. Starsky was having a severe reaction to the books we were assigned to pick through. Unfortunately it wasn't our gig, and therefore not our decision to be here.

"-and I'm gonna blow my brains out my nose."

"You know if you quit talking, you'll breathe less of this into your lungs."

That little gem of advice earned me a glare. The truth was this wasn't the first day that we'd been stuck at this job. And we weren't the first to fall victim to its charms either. Half the DA's office had been out sick because of these books, and the private library they had come from.

Of course the guys before us had stayed in the building where the fumes of cat pee, mold, dust and ammonia could knock out a rhino. It was Starsky's idea to drag the books into the alley a wheelbarrow load at a time and sort through them there. I'd provided work gloves and masks but Starsky was so certain of his plan he refused to wear his.

Now he was regretting it, but I knew better than to gloat about it. I allowed myself a satisfied smirk behind the mask and tossed a copy of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit into the dumpster. The book came apart at the spine mid-flight. Starsky watched it disintegrate in the air and pointed miserably at the dumpster.

"Anything we find is gonna fall apart the minute we touch it anyway. That DA is punishing us."

"We aren't the only ones on this job, Starsk."

"We're the only sergeants on this job."

That much was true so I kept my mouth shut, quickly emptying the wheel barrow. Starsky, working at half the pace, noticed the end drawing nigh and groaned. "Three days of this, Hutch. Three days." He coughed and I winced for him.

"Come on, buddy. We're almost to the A's."

"And then we can go home?"

"And then we can go home."

Starsk picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and eyed the gabled entryway that provided the shortest route to and from the fiction section inside the condemned building. The windows and doors were open, and remained that way for every hour that we were at work, but it'd only done so much to the toxicity of the fumes.

The interior was like a mustard gas factory populated by bats and pigeons and mice. Starsky had sworn he'd seen a fox in the Hal to Kin aisle. I chalked it up to delusions and Starsky's top notch imagination, but even I was beginning to see something bigger than a rat scurrying around corners.

"I like books, Hutch. I..I mean I like books. I've read some of the classics. Crime and Peace, War and Punishment-"

"That's "Crime and Punishment" and "War and Peace"." I corrected.

"What are those? Sequels?"

I couldn't tell if Starsky was serious. He ignored the look I gave him and continued to prattle about his favorite tomes, shuffling down the aisle using a manure shovel to scoop up piles of dumped books coated in pigeon guano.

"You know I once read a book that was all about this great guy called R. T. Barnum."

"Starsk-"

"He was a great guy. He invented the mermaid and the great white whale. And he had this terrific museum in New York that I visited when I was real little-"

"Starsky.."

The first time I might have considered it a delusion. The second time I was beginning to believe my own eyes. The third time I slapped a hand over Starky's mouth to get him to shut up.

Starsky

A slap in the mouth I can handle, but Hutch was trying to rattle my sin-yuses outta my head with that move. I swear I saw stars first. Then I saw the fox he was pointing at and pried his fingers away from my lips.

"Yeah that's the fox I was-" Smack! Another palm to the chops. Hutch was going to be paying my next dental bill.

"Will you shut up? We gotta catch that thing."

"Why?" I asked, quietly this time.

Hutch looked at me like I'd grown another head. Given the pounding in my temples I was willing to believe I had. "It's evidence."

I stared at the blonde Ollie and shook my head. "It's a fox. He's just cold and looking for a place to stay."

I bent toward the pile of reeking books, swallowed back a rush of bile and scooped them into the wheelbarrow. Knowing with regret that this wasn't the last I would see of them. I was going for another scoop when Hutch tapped my shoulder.

He was still staring at that stupid fox. Bright blue eyes annoyingly free of irritation. I ignored him, got my second scoop and was going for a third when tap tap tap.

"What!"

"He's got something."

"What?"

"In his mouth. He's got something."

I glanced over at the fox. The thing hadn't moved. Eyes glazed, back arched, looking ready to attack, the thing hadn't twitched so much as a muscle. There was a tuft of fur clutched in its mouth.

"It's probably a mouse or something. Fox's eat mice."

Hutch finally straightened from his half-crouch, his brow furrowing. "That fox is dead."

"Aww...come- Don't kill it, Hutch. He hasn't done anything to you."

"No..Starsk..it's dead. Stuffed. It's a mount."

"Oh."

"Come on."

I groaned, putting every ounce of the sick, nose-stuffed, eyes-burning misery I felt into the sound. Hutch ignored it, intent on sneaking up on a dead, stuffed and mounted wild Yorkie.

The first time I'd seen the thing the library had been dark. I'd caught sight of the reflection of my flashlight in its eyes, then let it go. We'd scared enough wildlife out of the library, as long as it wasn't going to bite me, I didn't care what it did.

Hutch hunched down in front of the fox picking it up and sticking his nose as close to the mouse as he could get without gagging. I kept my distance scanning the rest of the floor, a foot deep in refuse and tattered books and-

"Hutch."

"Yeah, Starsk."

I swallowed hard. "Snake."

Hutch

At first I thought the snake was stuffed. It stayed where it was, partially coiled in the single shaft of sunlight filtering through the muck covered windows. I shifted my stance prepared to tell Starsky there was nothing to fear when the books under the snake started to slide, a precipitous movement to the snake's escape into the pile.

I gulped and said, reassuringly, "It's g-gone, Starsk."

"Yeah, but it's gonna be back. Hey, can we get outta here?"

"Yeah. Let's...fill that wheelbarrow, huh?"

Watching the surface of the books around our feet Starsky disappeared behind a row of shelves, quietly mumbling to himself. I followed in his footsteps, taking my time with the fox tucked under my arm.

Starsky's sudden scream knocked me off balance and into a reeking cesspool of mouldering paper and cardboard.

"Starksy!"

A weak moan responded, followed by high-pitched panicked breaths. "Starsky, I'm comin!"

Every surface I pushed against slid away from me. Moist pages were sticking to my gloves, my jacket, the knees of my jeans. As if the books had finally claimed a victim and were too close to satisfaction to let me escape. One foot finally plunged through the layer of books and I found hardwood floor with my toe. I swept my foot toward me, clearing a path through the crush of books so that I could get the other foot on the ground.

I heard the crack and snap of the mousetrap seconds before it closed on the corner of my sneakered foot. The strangled sound I made sounded an awful lot like the sound Starsky had just made. A commiserating groan came in answer.

"Suppose...that's why there are books...all over the floor?" Starsky called, followed by a groan and the shift of cloth and paper. Seconds later there was a snap, snap, snap followed by equal parts, "Ow! Ow! OW!"

"This is punishment!" My partner yelled angrily. "Dobey has to be in on it! This is punishment for the typewriter. So why am I suffering?"

It was broken. My toe had to be broken. I managed my feet and clung to the shelf with one hand afraid to take another step and lose another appendage. "Just stay still. I'm comin' to ya." I called, hoping to convince myself by means of convincing my partner.

Balancing on my good foot I reached for the corner of the trap, planning to yank it free of my shoe and brave the consequences.

"What kinda twisted library is this? Dangerous animals, stuffed foxes, mouse traps every two-snap-ow!"

"Quit moving around." I called, gingerly pinching the corner of the trap between my fingers, breathing harder, building up my nerve.

"Well what's taking you so long. My legs are startin' to itch."

Just yank it off, Hutch. You've been shot before, leg trapped under a car, been slapped and blown up. What's a little mouse trap compared to all that?

"Hutch...libraries are supposed to be full of nice smelling books, with soft chairs to sit and read in, and sweet, beautiful raven haired librarians...ahh!"

The mousetrap could come off later, I decided and forced myself across the bridge of books, covering ground on the balls of my feet. Like a mountie on snowshoes, rushing to my partner's rescue.

He was almost in the clear, wearing mouse traps like some people wear jewelry. One trap was closed around his hand, another clinging to his jacket at the elbow. One had come dangerously close to the crotch of his pants and another dangled from his ear.

Rather than ask how he'd managed it I dragged Starsky to his feet and propelled him toward the cleared hallway and the outside door. We both tumbled down the ramp in a messy, stinking heap, rolling across the gravel in the alley and coming to a stop a few inches from the tires of a recently parked car.

The roll had knocked the mouse trap from my foot, and taken care of a few of Starsky's adornments. The only one left was the one on his hand, the flesh around the metal bar swelling and red.

The door of the car opened and a familiar foot stepped out. Dark brown, watery eyes gazed down at us with concern and a little amusement. Clutching at my wounded leg I managed a semi-professional, "Captain."

Starsky muttered something similar in the midst of a pained groan.

"You boys taking a nap?" When neither of us responded, Dobey's face darkened and he demanded, "You get that job done?"

I met Starsky's watering, red eyes and rolled over so that I could free him of the final trap. "Not yet, Cap."

"Still plenty to be done, eh?"

Starsky sat up, then reached down for my arm and together we managed to get upright, leaning on each other. Any other arrangement wouldn't have worked.

"Plenty." Starsky said, not happy about it, but resigned, as I was, to the punishment that I now believed Dobey had devised for us.

Dobey stared at the house, chewing something over in his mind before he waved a thick hand at the building and turned back to his car. "It can wait. Come on. Huggy wants to see you two. Something about a lead."

I met Starsk's eyes, shocked and said, "Wait a minute. What about the DA? What about the case?"

"Charges were dropped." Dobey said, slamming his door shut and turning the engine over in the same moment. Without so much as a glance or a second word, our Captain peeled backward out of the alley and disappeared down the road.

I kept very still and quiet for a moment, waiting as Starsky limped around to face me. His face was flushed and tight with fury, eyes weeping in response to the irritation. "Charges...dropped. This was punishment."

"Starsky."

"Punishment for your prank that backfired."

"Come on, Pal…"

"Don't talk to me."

"Just let me drive you to the hospital…"

"I'd rather walk."

"Starsky…."

"Starsky!"

"Stars-never mind."


	5. Can't See Down

Starsky

"Hutch!"

You would think that after spending far too much time in a mental hospital a few years back, my partner and I would know better than to try it again.

"Hutch! Hang on, buddy!"

I set the example for how to be the worst inmate in the world and paid for it. I've never slept so long or so hard in my life. I even offered to be the patient again this time but Hutch, my buddy, my partner. He insisted that it was his turn.

"Stay where you are. Don't move. Just hang on!"

This time around it was a lot harder to keep track of one another. I was stuck in the suicide watch ward, and Hutch was over with the patients with obsessive disorders. People who couldn't stop biting their nails, or sticking themselves with pins, or eating worms. Like drug addicts but with the weird stuff instead. The voluntary ward.

"Oh Geeze. Hutch! ...not the ladder."

The place where the otherwise sane people turn themselves in for their own safety. The problem was, somehow the people in the obsessive voluntary ward were ending up in the involuntary suicide-watch ward. We were there to figure out how and why.

"It's okay, Starsk. I can fly. I know I can fly."

"No...no, you can't fly. You can only crash and burn."

You see, one or two families losing the black sheep of the family to an institution wasn't likely to draw a lot of attention. But twelve people all dive bombing off the hospital roof, and none of them depressed when they went in. That was a problem. A problem that twelve families, mothers, fathers, daughters and brothers were waiting for us to solve.

"Aw Hutch...couldn't've picked a shorter building..."

We weren't going to solve much with Ken "Birdman" Hutchinson trying to fly off the roof with nothing on but a pair of boxer shorts, a neck brace and a paper and string kite. I wasn't so fond of heights myself and the ladder I was climbing was starting to wobble dangerously. Hutch had one foot on the low wall that bordered the roof. Far too close and far too happy about it.

"David, David, David. I can help you fly too. I've got the magic."

"You got drugs is what you got." I topped the roof, breathing hard and trying to figure the best approach. Was there enough time to walk up slow and talk him away from the edge? Should I tackle him and hope it didn't go horribly wrong. Would he even go down?

"You remember the case, partner?" We hadn't drawn a crowd yet. It was 3 a.m. and but for the night guards there wasn't anybody out on the floors. If I hadn't been on my way to check on Hutch before clocking out for the night I wouldn't have known he was up here. His room had been empty. He'd been restrained but he'd managed get out of them.

It explained why his chart had been misplaced earlier in the day. Why Doctor Klinefield had been absent most of the day. Why my partner was trying to fly.

"Case? Case of what? Beer? God, I could go for a beer right now, Starsk."

Hutch started to put his other bare foot up on the edge, crouching in preparation for that final leap.

"NO!" I shouted, breathlessly aware of the loud echo. "No...not a case of beer. Hutch...the case. Remember? We're police officers. We're undercover."

One foot lowered back to the roof and Hutch's face, free of the usual ponderous look, closed into a frown. Fighting against the effects of the drug. A drug that turns normal people into bodies, just surely as cocaine.

"Case…"

"Yeah...a case. A very important case that's gonna cost a lot of lives, including yours, unless you come over to me right now." I was shaking and trying not to let it show in my voice, or the hand that was outstretched. I was taking baby steps toward him any time he looked away, praying he didn't notice.

Both feet were now firmly planted on the roof and Hutch turned, stiff due to the neck brace.

"But...if I go now, when will I fly."

I laughed, wondering if there really was a line between insane and whereever Hutch and I were in that moment. "They'll be a time to fly, partner. I promise. I'll take you up in a plane, I'll build you your own set of wings. I'll sew you a parachute by hand. But right now we gotta solve this case, right? Do our jobs."

He was nodding, agreeing, turning to face me. We were thirty feet apart. Then twenty-five. Then twenty when the ponderous look started to fade and a beatific smile flooded his face.

"Starsky…" he said, shaking his head at me like I was a foolish mortal underestimating the abilities of the gods. "I control time…" He said, stretching his arms out and up over his head. "I control space."

He took a step backward, then another, his heel brushing against the low wall. He stepped up, backwards, with one foot and my heart leaped out of my chest. I jolted forward three steps until Hutch put his palms out to stop me.

Not a threat, but like a magician quieting an audience before performing a death-defying trick. Except that Hutch wasn't going to defy anything, no matter what that drug was whispering in his ear.

I was desperate. Clutching anything until I remembered something. A conversation from long ago that I'd never gotten to the bottom of.

I could barely breathe, could hardly speak, and my face was wet. "Hutch…" I managed, swallowing around a fist-sized lump. "You can't see down."

His neck constricted by the collar, Hutch made an awkward quirk of the head and said, "What?"

I took another step, and another, my hands out, begging him silently to step towards me. "You-you can't jump...because you can't see down."

Hutch shook his head, still focused on me but clearly not understanding. Not remembering.

"It's a rule, remember. You're not afraid as long as you can see down. But uh...you can't see down."

Hutch tried to look down but the collar stopped him.

"So you probably shouldn't fly right now. B-because if you try now, what if you get scared? And I haven't learned how to fly yet. So you'd be all alone...up there."

Another step and I could almost reach him. One lunge and I could wrap my arms around his waist and drag him back onto the roof.

My chest was heaving. I was going to have a heart attack and follow my partner to death's door, then come back so that I could haunt the quack doctor that killed us. "Can't break the rules, Hutch. We're cops."

And like that Hutch stepped down. He seemed sturdy at first, taking two steps towards me before his knees buckled. I grabbed him and pulled, landing butt first on the rooftop with my partner in my arms. His skin was freezing and clammy despite how warm the night was.

He needed clothes. A blanket. I shucked the white coat I'd been given for my cover and laid it over him, rubbing at his arms and chest while my heartbeat continued to race.

"Starsky?"

"Yeah, partner."

"What are you crying for?"

I looked down to see a childlike frown of concern creasing Hutch's face. He even had a sincere little pout. I laughed, wiping at the wetness on my face. The laugh took control of my lungs for a moment, somewhere between a sob and wheeze. It took a while before I could talk again. By then Hutch's frown had disappeared and he was smiling at the joke, even though he hadn't heard it.

"I'm afraid of heights." I said, choking on another round of laughter that seemed out of place, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Hutch joined me this time, sounding more like himself, his eyes losing some of their bliss-filled vacancy.

"You should spend less time on the roof then." Hutch said and we were both goners.


	6. Quake

Earthquake

Hutch

It started with a low vibration. A hum that Starsky noticed first, his head cocking up like a bloodhound. There were no windows in the squad room to look out of. No way of knowing what was coming down. The hum was followed by a shriek, and the whole building quaked knocking me back a step. I had time to make one all important move, then the ceiling caved in.

"I'm scared."

"You don't need to be scared, Gracie. Remember what I said about that light up there?"

"I'm not Gracie. I'm Susan."

Starsky chuckled from somewhere in the darkness, but I knew that if I joined him, the girls might think we were making fun of them.

"That's right, you're Susan and you're...five-years-old?"

Blonde pig-tails bounced, blue eyes glinting faintly in the light that filtered down through two stories of debris.

"Bravest five-year-old I know." Starsky said. The fingers of his left hand appeared, curving under the edge of the beam that separated us. They tightened on the metal and I could hear him grunt, shifting painfully in what had become a never ending struggle to get comfortable.

"I'll say. And Gracie is seven." I said.

Susan's older sister was blonde, blessed with curls and cursed with crooked front teeth that left her with a whistling gap. Still her smile was contagious, or it had been the last time I'd seen it.

Starsky had been holding Gracie's hand when it all went down. She'd been under his body when the debris started to fall. The beam that separated us kept her trapped with my partner for the time being.

"I'm brave too." I heard Gracie insist.

"Sure are." Starsky said. "Maybe you'll be a cop some day."

"Girls can't be cops." Gracie said, whistling her 's's.

Susan whipped her head toward the sound of her sister's voice, then back to me, waiting for me to confirm or deny the wisdom of the older sibling.

"You mean you didn't see all those brave girl cops when you came into the station this morning?" I asked.

Susan shook her head, wide-eyed.

"Oh..there's lots o'dem." Starsky slurred, "There's Minnie."

"And there's Joan. She's a detective." I added.

Susan gasped. "Like you!"

"Nah, Susan, she's better than Hutch."

"Thanks a lot, partner." I muttered.

Starsky gave a laugh that turned into a choking cough that he did his best to muffle.

I waited, listening past the pounding in my head. The solid, steady throb in my hand. The rhythm of the tiny heartbeat and lungs leaning against my chest.

Starsky recovered slowly, gasping for breath, but picking up the conversation as if nothing had happened, as determined as I was to keep both children calm. "There's...uh...Sergeant Peterson...she works with kids."

There were others. Others that we had worked with, then buried. Others that had met the challenges and dangers of the job without blinking and paid the price. The mentality towards women on the force was changing, but in too many cases, it wasn't fast enough.

"You know…" I started, surprised at the sudden waver in my voice. "By the time you and your sister are old enough I'll bet they'll be lots of lady cops."

"And lady firemen maybe." Starsky added.

"And doctors?" Susan asked.

"And….and school bus drivers?" Gracie piped up, anxious not to be left behind by her younger sister's imagination.

I could hear a breathless chuckle under my own.

"Lady...lady astronauts." I suggested.

Starsky coughed, the sound wetter than before, but he reigned it in quickly. "Lady zookeepers."

Gracie giggled, delighted. "Like Mommy!"

"What!?" Starsky demanded, the reaction making Gracie giggle harder.

"Mommy says we're like aminals in a zoo!" Gracie laughed, then shrieked with glee.

I could feel Susan squirming on my lap, anxious to see her sister, and join in the fun. The rubble had destroyed her only means of locomotion however and she sat without complaint, enjoying her sister's happiness vicariously.

The fun ended abruptly with another round of vicious coughing that faded to my partner panting weakly and Gracie silent as death. I grit my teeth together. There was nothing I could do about it. I knew he was hurt, but I had no way of finding out how bad.

Trying to shift the rubble had broken my left hand and showered us with dust, dirt and concrete shards. Susan couldn't crawl through the gaps that separated us, and Gracie wasn't going to fit. We'd been inches apart before the earth started shaking and now it felt like miles.

"Starsk?"

"I'm ok." My partner responded almost immediately, but his voice was strained.

"You should try to rest. Get some sleep."

Starsky sighed, the congestion in his lungs rattling loudly. "Can't sleep without a lullaby.."

A second later I heard a soft sniffle and Starsky quietly telling the older girl not to cry. "Listen, if you cry, you aren't going to be able to hear my partner sing. And he's the best singer I know."

There were more sniffles and I could feel Susan's hands tightening around my right arm, a nervous habit that she usually perpetrated against the armrests of her wheelchair. We'd watched her do it anytime she got excited about something around the station. She and her sister had been frequent guests of the precinct with their mother.

Etta. Strong, passionate, protective. Etta was trying to organize a one woman neighborhood watch while raising two daughters on her own. She had become a familiar face in the precinct and one that I hoped I would see again.

"That's right." Starsky said. "No tears. Open ears. You're on, partner."

"Let's see…" I stalled, moving my hand above my head again to drain the blood that was collecting. I shifted my legs and moved Susan, like moving a baby doll, so that she could snuggle against my chest. Fishing through a lexicon of songs that I infrequently used, and most of the time with a guitar in my hands, or a piano over my lap.

The moment Susan's head came to rest on my chest the lyrics and the tune filtered into my brain and I drew in a breath. "What song to sing, my tomorrow child."

One of Susan's hands rose up, fingers curling around the edge of my breast pocket, pulling herself and her dead legs a little closer to me. Her movements as natural as they would have been in the womb. "Still so small and new."

I wrapped my good arm a little tighter around her and sang, "What shall I say, to show the way."

I heard Starsky begin to cough again and listened intently even as I continued, "What games to play with you."

"The world turns quickly now, and changes every mile.

What shall I say to show the way,

Tomorrow child."

"I can't tell you what your life will be…" I felt Susan falling asleep, head growing heavier against my arm, her fingers going lax against my pocket. "Time will show you roads that I can't see."

Faintly I could hear Starsky humming along, slightly off key.

"And if they carry you away from me, then go with love-Tomorrow child."

Singing had increased the pressure in my head and I would have to move my hand again soon. The amount of air singing required was too much, but humming I could handle and I went back through the chorus, letting my eyes slip closed.

By the time I finished Susan's breathing was steady and deep. I caught my breath for a second then quietly called, "Starsk?"

"Yeah."

"She asleep?"

"Like a kitten. You did good, partner."

I gave him a second to catch his breath. To rest. Then asked, "How bad is it?"

I listened to him breathe for a minute, the sound echoing off of cold stone and lifeless concrete. He coughed weakly and cleared his throat then changed the subject. "How's your hand?"

I looked at it. The swelling was grotesque. I'd had to pull my ring off, over swelling fingers, to avoid losing circulation. It hurt more to look at the damage than to ignore it and I was suddenly in agreement with my partner.

"Gracie alright?"

"Her head stopped bleeding. Seems okay otherwise." He was silent for a moment then drew in a shaky breath and added. "Cold."

"Think you can get some sleep?"

The silence stretched between us and for a second I was struck with the feeling of utter and complete isolation. Like a man cresting a mountain that no one else could reach. The song I'd been singing echoed in my head, buzzing loud in my ears until Starsky spoke again.

"I'd love to, but…"

"We'll make it, Starsk. I promise."

Starsky

What Hutch didn't know. What I hadn't told him, and what Gracie thankfully wasn't able to see, was that there was more than just the weight of a beam pinning me to the floor. I couldn't tell if it was rebar, or a screw, a shard of glass or wood. Something had come down hard on my left side, breaking bone and skin, making it hard to breathe, and easy to bleed.

Whatever it was, was attached to the beam putting pressure on my hips and chest. I was now part of the building itself and I felt like a character in an old children's story that used to haunt me. Trapped, molded to the building and destined to slowly become a part of the architecture.

Our first attempts at digging ourselves out had ended disastrously. I'd been terrified I'd lost a partner twice in the same hour. The first time when I woke to see concrete inches from my nose, and the second time when the debris started to fall and I heard Susan screech.

We both knew the problem. If this had been an earthquake, then the damage would be citywide. Sure people would be out looking for us. For the girl's especially. But those same people had to get themselves out of danger first before they could worry about the rest of us.

If there had been a bomb, the other likely possibility in a police station, there would be higher priority cases. People who had been closer to the blast than us. Criminals that needed to be secured or the city would be even worse off than it already was.

What all of that translated into was time. Time to get engineers into position. Time to get ambulances and med techs and hospitals ready for the wounded. Time that a guy maybe didn't have if he was bleeding too much. That's why I couldn't sleep.

I was ready to mindlessly believe that Hutch was right, and that we were going to get out of it. But at the back of my mind I was remembering Terry. Terry who had chosen to live out her life, no matter how short it might be, rather than sleep through it just so that she could breathe a little longer.

I figured if these were my last hours. I wanted to live them, awake and kicking.

For that matter…

"We should try it again."

"Wha-No...no. You should rest. Save your strength. It's gonna be bad enough getting out wi-"

"Hutch...suppose we don't have that kinda time. Alright? I still have reports to finish, I got a date tonight, I gotta get my car waxed. Things to do. I'm tired of waitin' around."

Hutch started to argue, an inarticulate protest coming out of his mouth before he settled into thought. Then he asked the same question a second time. "How bad?"

The shallows breaths were working. Keeping the choking the tightness in my chest at bay, keeping what felt like a broken rib from moving around too much. It made it harder to talk though. And...the truth was I didn't know how bad. Not really. "Not sure." I said. "Bad."

Air went out of my partner's lungs like a pierced balloon, then cloth and chunks of concrete and metal started to move and I knew Hutch was working his way upright. "Ok." He said finally, his voice in a different position than it had been before. "Ok."

I listened to my partner for a long while, monitoring the sounds of shifting building materials, the intensity of the grunts, the rhythm of his breathing. He worked in almost complete silence, but in my mind's eye I could see him.

The stillness would mean that he was resting, eyeing the pick-up-sticks pile that used to be Precinct 9, unjumbling the jumble in his mind. Then the rubble at his feet would shift, concrete would scrape on concrete and, seconds later, land with a sharp slap or a tumble. Hutch would shift his footing, pause, then move something again.

The same rhythm had led to the first landslide, Susan's scream, Hutch crushing his hand. Knowing it was a possibility I couldn't just sit and listen for much longer. I was never one for patience. "How's your progress?"

"You're supposed to be sleeping."

"I can't sleep. You're makin' too much noise."

Hutch laughed then sucked air through clenched teeth and the movement of rubble stopped.

"Hutch?"

"I'm fine."

I waited until Hutch started excavating again then asked. "You wanna talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Etta."

Hutch started grunting again. Struggling against something. "You sure this is the time?"

"Maybe not…" I felt the cough coming and I swallowed hard against it, gritting my teeth together until the need and the pain passed. "...but you know I'm bored."

It took him a second to respond. When he did Hutch was out of breath. "Ok...what about her."

"You like her."

I got a chuckle that time, listened to a piece of metal bounce a few times and grinned. "You go gooey eyed anytime she's in the station. You always want to parade her kids around the halls. Here you are, saving their lives."

"She's a good woman."

"Of course she is. She's practically a saint."

"She's not a saint." Hutch said, uncharacteristically crass.

"What!?"

"She's a good mom. She loves her kids and her neighborhood and her...town...uh!" Something big came free, rubble trickled like rain water through the cracks and we both waited, holding our breaths until the building settled. Breathing hard, Hutch continued. "I'd rather she be that, than some stone statue on a pedestal."

"Yeah…"

"Know what I mean?"

"Yeah." A sharp spike of pain cut into me. I'd taken a deeper breath than I should have and the hurt made me want to curl up into a ball. I couldn't move suddenly. Couldn't think.

I didn't hear Hutch scramble over the rubble, didn't notice the brush of the breeze that hadn't been flowing before. I didn't even notice Hutch's hand snaking through into my prison, didn't notice my hand latching on. I only knew he was there when the pain finally passed and I could see his white knuckles through the gaps between my fingers.

"Easy. Take it easy. Breathe, Starsk. Easy."

"F-find...a way out?"

"For Gracie."

"What?"

"Get her up, Starsk. If I can get her over here, she can climb up through, get a look at the damage. Maybe let somebody know we're down here."

Hutch

Starsky's grip had been stronger than I thought possible. The knuckles of my good hand were grinding together and for a while I was sure he couldn't hear me. Too lost in whatever the pain was doing to him. I was afraid he'd pass out, stop breathing, stop being, before I had a chance to put my new plan into action.

Getting Gracie up, building an entryway that she could slip through, reuniting her with her sister then convincing her to climb up through the mole hole I'd made needed to happen faster than was likely. There wasn't time to be gentle anymore, yet too much movement, too much force could end us all.

Still between the two of us we managed. Once she knew that she could see her sister if she was willing to be brave, Gracie crawled through the hole willingly. She gained a couple of new scratches, but was ignorant of them, rushing to hug Susan.

We ran into a snag when I coached Gracie through the climb though. She didn't want to do it alone, started shaking, and went white. Susan surprised both of us when she piped up.

"I'll go with you, Gracie. Like a monkey. Like when we climb our tree." She said.

I wish Starsky could have seen them, the look of reassurance that passed silently, transforming Susan into a girl beyond her age, and Gracie into a hero beyond her time.

With Susan's strong arms wrapped around her neck, Gracie took to the climb like a mountain goat. I coached from below, following them up as far as I could without compromising the integrity of the debris. They amazed me, moving in total harmony until they had disappeared into the bright sunlight at the top.

Minutes after they disappeared they started shouting, bringing as much attention to themselves as they could, just the way I'd told them.

"They make it out?"

I listened to Starsky choking weakly on air and said, "Yeah. They made it."

I crossed the minefield of shifting junk and carefully got to my belly in front of the hole that Gracie had escaped through. I reached into the blackness until I found the sleeve of my partner's jacket and squeezed his arm. His hand closed around the back of my wrist and I felt his grip firm up.

"Shame we had to grow up." Starsk said, exhausted.

"Yeah. It'd be nice to be five again. Fearless…"

"Able to fit through tiny holes. Have somebody else there to...protect ya, pay the bills. Tuck you into bed at night."

"What am I, chopped liver?"

There was a pause. While we rested I could feel Starsk's pulse through the vein in his wrist. Rapid, but there.

"You're not bad, Hutch but...when it comes to tucking in at night I prefer someone with...softer legs, kinder eyes, less facial hair."

"You want me to shave more, I'll shave more."

A few breathless gasps sufficed for laughter and Starsky's grip tightened. "Don't. Like you...hairy." Starsky swallowed, collecting himself, then added. "S'how I can tell the difference between you and the women you date."

"Funny guy…"

Above us we could still hear the girls. They were farther away, defying my express instructions to stay put once they made it up top. There might have been other voices joining them. If I strained I could place one of them as Captain Dobey. Another as the fire chief. Maybe even Huggy.

"I'm ready t'go home." Starsky sighed, slurring worse than before.

"Well...you won't mind if I stop by the hospital first, would ya?"

Starsky's hand jerked away, then latched onto my wrist again. "Why...something wrong with ya?"

"Oh...no, course not. There's just a very attractive nurse I think you should meet before you write off all my girlfriends as hairless men."

"That's a smart idea."

"Thank you."

"You should start dating a whole surgical team. It'd save us a lotta bucks on medical bills."

"Hah!" I laughed. "By that right you should be dating a car mechanic."

"Earl's not my type."

Starsky's fingers dug into the tendons of my wrist and he went quiet. I held on tight, wishing I could take the pain from him.

"We're gonna make it, Starsk."

The pain passed, Starsky relaxed a little and panted, "You know...this time I believe ya."

I smiled, tuned to every sound he made, so focused on keeping him alive by will alone that I nearly missed the first shout of our rescue.

"Starsky! Hutchinson! You guys alive down there?"

"Are we...alive down here?"

"You bet we are, partner."


	7. Elevator

Elevator

"I've told you how I feel about heights. I've told you this, right?" Starsky shouted, tossing the statement over his shoulder before he squeezed the trigger three more times. Rapid fire was one of those bad habits the police academy tried to drill out of its pupils but David Starsky had always been a better shot with three or four bullets flying through the air, as compared to one.

A beautiful brown-eyed, blonde-haired range instructor had once tried to indicate that this meant that Starsky was, in fact, a terrible shot and needed to practice more. Until the range instructor had left town Starsky was more than happy to comply. The fun had gone out of it after Hannah moved to North Dakota.

Detective Sergeant Ken Hutchinson responded to his partner with covering fire, watching the movement of the leather clad cop until he was behind something solid that bullets would bounce off of, instead of go through.

"I didn't set the meet." Hutch insisted, avoiding looking at the walls of the fortieth floor. An easy task given that there weren't any.

Solid steel beams, and thankfully a floor and ceiling, but the walls wouldn't be added to the structure for a few months yet. This provided a breathtaking view of the ocean, a gale of pleasant, sea breezes and the very real possibility of falling to one's death. What should have been incentive for everyone involved to get along, failed miserably once one of the ten bad guys with guns finally put names to the faces he'd vaguely remembered from long ago.

Now the goal was to get out alive, and the means to that goal was a single freight elevator at the end of the building. Unfortunately the elevator was behind the armed bad guys. Starsky and Hutch were being pushed toward the other end of the building. There would be emergency stairs there someday, but at the moment there was only a sheer drop.

The hail of bullets slowed, the bad guys realizing that there wasn't much either cop could do but waste bullets in their direction. The big cheese, a clothing merchant born into a family of crooks, and more than happy to keep the family business going, stopped the shootout with a casual shout and wave of his hand and eyed the cement mixer that he knew sheltered at least one of the cops.

"Seems you picked the wrong day to show up for work, boys, huh?"

Starsky and Hutch exchanged a glance, the curly haired cop rolling his eyes to show that the trembling in his gun hand wasn't fear but boredom. Hutch shifted, letting his shoulder land against the strut of the mixer and taking stock of just how close they were to the edge, and what, of very few options, they might be able to exploit.

"Ivan here tells me he owes you boys for the degree he got while he was in the joint. He's very grateful."

"Shame he didn't put it to use! Anybody with a college degree should know bettah than to hang out with you!" Starsky shouted, watching his partner plot.

Seconds later Hutch pointed to a pile of nylon rope and metal slats. It took a moment for Starsky to unravel the pile and realize what it was, but when he did his eyes widened. It looked like salvation. It also looked like a death wish. Starsky gave a reluctant nod of agreement then tilted his head back, inching upward in a crouch until he could see the men scattered across the width of the construction site.

"In fact most of those dummies look like they couldn't tie their own shoes without help."

The baddy, Anton Schultz, grinned with perfectly capped teeth, the white shining like a beacon in a deeply tanned face. "Cheap insults, Starsky. Especially coming from a cop with only two options."

"Sure. I got two options. Option 1-"

Hutch was inching across the floor, careful to make sure that the sound of his movement was masked by the conversation. The rope ladder was easy to reach but not so easy to untangle.

"...shoot all of you and drag your corpses down to the station. Or, option 2-"

The baddies were chuckling, but waiting for the rest of the joke before they interrupted with more arrogant threats. Hutch had unwound the ladder and was inching towards the edge of the floor on his belly. The top of the ladder would hook over the edge making it relatively secure, but not a means of escape that they could use more than once.

Just the thought of swinging out over forty-stories of air with nothing but a little rope and metal to keep him from falling to his doom was making Starsky dizzy. "Option 2...I guess we could spare your lives, and take you in still breathing. But you're going to have to play nice and share the cuffs."

More sinister laughter filtered from the other end of the floor and Starsky used the noise to cover his own retreat, doing everything in his power not to look out, or down.

"Your partner is a real comedian, Stan...or uh...what did you say their names were, Starchy and Husk?"

"No, I'm Starchy, he's Husk!"

Hutch went over first, his gun tucked into the holster, both hands white knuckled on the rungs of the ladder. It swung violently, prompting Starsky to slam a hand down on the struts attaching the ladder to the building.

He was aware, with a lump rising in his throat, that there would be no one remaining to steady the ladder once he descended.

"Real comedians. Real funny for cops that got no place to go. Let me give you your real options. Option 1 is to come outta your hidey holes and let me finish you off quick and easy. Option 2-"

"Hey boss…?"

"What?"

Behind the bad guys there was a metallic click and a groan, then the elevator shuddered and started to descend. "What the-"

A floor below Starsky stood at the button to the elevator, his right hand holding the plastic circle down while the other pointed a gun at the metal safety door. Hutch stood at a distance, covering the other corner of the elevator in a classic firing stance. As the car descended they could hear the confused shouts from above, the sound of someone trying to squeeze into the elevator and withdrawing an appendage with a shout of disappointment and pain.

Questions were screamed back and forth, echoing against the bare concrete and steel, and Starsky grinned as the empty elevator settled on their floor.

"Aprez vouz, Hutch my good man." Starsky said, opening the safety gate and swinging his gun toward the elevator with a flourish.

"Mercy buckups." Hutch said, grinning in return.

Once in the elevator Hutch studied the controls then asked, "Up or down?"

"Eh...down. Let's not press our luck."

"Good idea. Give them some time to cool off. Think about the bad things they've done."

As the elevator began its descent, both men winced and flinched as the volume of the argument above them increased, punctuated by shots and loud crashes.

"Maybe he should spend the night up there?" Starsky suggested.

"May-" Hutch was interrupted by a distant, loud, teeth-grinding groan of something heavy being forced across the floor. "Hey, we're not gonna be charged for the havoc they're wreaking up there, are we?"

Starsky thought for a moment then asked, "You didn't see a jack hammer…"

"No.." Hutch said, shaking his head.

"We should be fine."

Ten seconds later the top of the elevator was punched inward, the car jolted and rocked knocking both men off their feet. Metal groaned loudly, gears grinding until a cable snapped and the car and whatever had hit it, descended the remaining ten floors at three times the speed.

At floor four the emergency brake kicked on, snapping around the double wound cable and reducing the speed of the falling car. The weight of the object that had been dropped onto the elevator was too much for what the emergency brake had been designed for. The car slowed but didn't stop until it hit the bottom of the shaft.

The impact brought the ceiling of the elevator crashing in on the occupants, but the cement mixer that had been dropped onto the car was too big to fall in with it.

Starsky was certain he never actually passed out. He became aware of himself staring up at the metal drum of the mixer trying to decide where he had seen it last, and why the sight of it made him so uncomfortable.

Dust and dirt was filtering down through the hole in the ceiling and Starsky blinked and coughed and tried to sit up. His legs moved ok. His head was throbbing. The left arm worked, but the right arm was on fire.

Starsky choked on a cry of pain and stared at the malicious pimple in the unbroken leather sleeve of his coat caused by the broken edge of bone sticking out of his forearm. It looked painful. Almost more painful than it felt. Suddenly aware that it might hurt less if he couldn't see it Starsky closed his eyes and called for his partner.

A soft grunt sounded from under the sheet of metal that had once been over their heads, something bounced off the metal and another grunt followed, then the metal scraped and Starsky opened his eyes to see Hutch emerge head first.

Blood had started to soak his hair into a patch of blonde and scarlet over his left eye and Hutch looked dazed, but for the moment whole. After a few deep breaths, Hutch focused on his partner and asked, "Was this your plan?"

"They dropped a cement mixer on us!" Starsky blurted, dazed.

Hutch shoved more of the crumpled ceiling away from his frame and stared up at the metal drum. Bigger than a bread box but smaller than wrecking ball. "Good thing it was empty...ah!"

Starsky's brow furrowed in concern and he sat up a little more, focusing on the drops of blood that were collecting on the floor under Hutch's torso.

"D'you get shot?"

Hutch shook his head pulling his shirt away from the blood, exposing a line of small puncture wounds that ran from the lowest rib on his left side to the waistband of his pants. Both men stared at the wounds in silence until Hutch sat up a bit more.

"Oh my god…" Starsky muttered, eyes fixed on the drill bit set that his partner must have landed on at some point.

Hutch picked up the set, staring at the smears of blood on each of the bits, in his mind's eye deciding just how deep each of them must have gone. "I'm complaining to the site boss."

"I don't blame ya. These industrial elevators are death traps."

Hutch tossed the drill bit set into the corner farthest away from him, carefully worked his way out of his jacket, then started to pull his shirt off. The puncture wounds ached, like he'd been punched in the gut one too many times with the pointy end of a hammer.

While Starsky worked his way to his feet, cradling his broken arm close to his chest, Hutch rolled the shirt, tied it over the wounds and slipped back into his jacket, fighting the urge to shiver.

Through the hole in the roof, far above their heads, Starsky could make out a dim face staring down at the elevator. Anton had trapped himself on the fortieth floor as a result of his angry fit. "I wonder if he's happy now."

Hutch, halfway to his feet, clung to the metal webbing that made up two of the four walls of the elevator and leaned out until he could see through the torn ceiling.

"If I'd thrown a temper tantrum that trapped me forty floors up I might be a little mad. Starsk, is that what I think it is?"

Starsky blinked and looked at his partner, then followed his pointed finger back to the sight of the bone tenting the leather of his coat sleeve. "Broke. But I think I like it this way."

Hutch surveyed the tiny space around them then tossed his hand in the air and shook his head. "Can't splint it anyway."

The blonde cop was silent for a bit, resting against the wall with his arm pressed against the long wound on his side. When he opened his eyes it was to reach for the safety door on the car. The surface of the main floor began about twenty inches from the top of the car, leaving enough of a gap that would allow them to crawl through one at a time. If they could get the door open.

"Pull on that side?" Hutch said, breathlessly, sucking air in before he locked both arms against the edge of the door and pushed. Starsky grit his teeth and did the same, pulling until his arm quaked. Neither man relaxed until the metal of the door gave a loud screech and the cage opened about a foot.

Seconds later a series of distant shots were followed by the whang of bullets hitting and careening off the cement mixer. Both men flinched, then put every effort into opening the door the rest of the way rather than duck for cover. The mixer was all the cover they would find unless they could get out of the cage.

The first gun had been joined by a second by the time Starsky fell back against the far wall of the elevator, the door fully open. Without hesitation Hutch squatted, cupped his hands together and looked expectantly at his partner. Rather than argue, Starsky ground his teeth together, stepped into his partner's hands then forced himself head first through the opening.

He landed on his broken arm and forced his legs to move despite the pain, rolling onto his side and thrusting his good arm through the gap until he felt Hutch latch on.

All ten men had to have been shooting into the elevator by the time Hutch yanked his sneakers free and rolled away from the hail of bullets. Neither man could move for a moment, panting in the cement dust coating the first floor.

"These guys….are working real hard...at being unlikeable." Starsky managed.

Hutch sat up with a groan that seemed to come from his toes and cradled his forehead in his hand. "A+ for effort."

"Were were gonna...hang around and let them..try to kill us. Or did you have a plan?"

"We drove your car." Hutch said, pointing over his shoulder.

"I can't drive with this arm." Starsky said, his voice a little more serious.

Hutch shifted at the change in tone, and was surprised to his see his partner's right hand smeared with blood.

"Ok." He grunted, getting to his knees, then to his feet. He straightened carefully then took short steps towards Starsky, guiding him to his feet as well. "I'll drive. Where are your keys?"

"Pocket."

"You dead cop!?" The shout echoed down faintly from above. Both men paused for a moment before Starsky giggled.

"Shh..don't answer him. He's trying to trick us."

"Did you just giggle?"

Starsky cleared his throat and pitched his voice an octave lower. "No...no. I was coughing. S'dusty."

Hutch nodded, taking a step toward the ramp that would lead them out of the building. The step hurt more than he expected and he curled over the wave of pain and nausea, only to have his partner slip under his shoulder and straighten him out again. Together the two moved like a four legged swamp creature, crossing the floor.

Distantly the bad guys were still arguing, each of Anton's men gradually realizing that their boss had trapped them, and that they were running out of the ammunition they might need to defend themselves. Especially if the cops weren't dead. Especially if the cops were able to escape and call for backup.

None of them were watching the parking lot, gathered around the now useless elevator shaft. It wasn't until the Torino's engine roared to life that any of them considered that the cops had not only survived the fall, but managed to escape their clutches all together. By the time they started to open fire on the flashy car the vehicle was easily out of range.

Three hours later a casted, giggling Starsky did his best to explain to Captain Dobey exactly how ten criminals ended up at the top of a secured construction site, resigned to waiting for the police to rescue them.

"So then...so then, Cap….so then Hutch jumps on the ladder and he swings way out into space and the whole ladder just kinda groaned like it was gonna buckle any minute. So I slap my hand down on that sucker cause...well I couldn't let Hutch fall. Am I right...what was your name again, darlin? Judy..Am I right, Judy. I mean what kinda partner would I be if-"

"Starsky…"

"Hmm? Oh. So then it's my turn to get down the ladder. And you know how I feel about heights, Cap. So I'm crawling down this rope ladder and I can hear Anton up at the top threatening to kill me and here I am on this ladder, probably gonna die of being squished to death at the bottom of this building." Starsky interrupted himself with yet another giggle, then caught himself giggling and cleared his throat suddenly dizzy.

Judy, the nurse finishing his cast, noticed the wane in Starsky's momentum and helped guide him back onto the bed that he was supposed to have been lying on anyway.

"Listen, uh, nurse? Is he going to be all right?"

"Yes, captain. We had to give him a strong sedative to get the bone back into place. He'll be fine once it wears off."

Dobey stared at the detective for a moment then said, "I'm going to check on my other man. I'll be right back. Don't let him leave the hospital."

After the captain left the nurse gave Starsky a shy smile. "You wouldn't walk out of this hospital without permission, would you, Detective Starsky?"

A bright smile spread on Starsky's face as he slurred, "Only if you go with me."

Dobey smirked at the final comment he heard before ducking out the door and down the hall. To his surprise he was able to pick up on the story right where he'd left off, as he walked in on Hutch's retelling.

"We rode down in the elevator and got about halfway to the ground floor when Anton dropped a cement mixer on us."

"That sounds like it was dangerous."

"Oh it was, very dangerous. Elevators aren't made to have cement mixers dropped on them."

"Is that when you landed on the drill bits?"

"Oh no, that happened when the elevator hit the ground floor."

"Wow...how did you manage to get out?"

"Well, you know, my partner, Starsky. He'd broken his arm, see, and could hardly stand. I had to use brute strength to get the door to the elevator open."

"I can tell you're very strong."

Dobey cleared his throat quietly asserting himself between the nurse and the detective. "Can I assume that my detective will survive, nurse?"

She was blushing, poor girl, her hips pressed close to the bed. Hutch had an arm snugged around her waist and was keeping her in kissing distance. Dobey quietly wondered how she would work her away free when she was missed on her rounds.

"We should keep him here for observation." The nurse said, stifling a giggle. "But I know he'll be just fine."

"Mmhm."

"Everybody get down ok, Cap?"

"None of them were happy about it. As soon as we tacked attempted murder charges onto the list, most of them started to turn on each other. Seems none of them were willing to help Anton with that cement mixer."

The nurse jumped in surprise then looked to Hutchinson. "Oh...oh there really was a cement mixer!"

Mildly injured by her shock Hutch nodded. "I wouldn't lie to you about a thing like that."

"Oh...oh you poor man."

Dobey rolled his eyes and quietly left the room, satisfied that nothing had happened to his men that couldn't be made right.


	8. Tracer

"He didn't stay on long enough, Starsky, we couldn't trace the call."

"You know I am tired of hearing you say that!" Starsky slammed the phone into the cradle, cracking the box a little. "You've never once been able to trace a call. What the hell is the point with these wires, antennae, all the buttons and gizmos. They never work!"

"Starsky!"

"No...Captain Dobey, we are wasting time. My partner is out there, this joker on the phone wants me to solve riddles for him and Danish over there still can't seem to do his job."

"It's Danishevsky and I can only move as fast as the machine does-"

"Then the machine should be scrapped." Starsky looked for a moment like he might punch the machine, then pulled his fist back and swiped his leather jacket off the back of chair.

"Where are you going?"

"Roses are red, violets are blue, if you hit the ball, it spoils the view. What does that sound like to you?"

"Dodger stadium." Dobey said.

"We got two hours left before that joker says Hutch is going to run outta air. I'm going to go save my partner's life the old fashioned way. If the 'future of law enforcement' starts to actually work, let me know."

Starsky left the room and Dobey laid his hand on the machine that had rarely proven itself useful. He didn't blame his detective for snapping. Starsky's partner was kidnapped and potentially dying while some madman on the phone jerked his chain all over the city.

"He's right, Cap, this thing has never proven itself worth the money the department spent on it." Robert Danishevski shook his head and switched the machine off, then pulled the cover away from the inner workings.

"Buying that thing wasn't my choice." Dobey said glaring at the angry looking wires and electrodes inside. "The department heads feel there's an electronic breakthrough coming and they want the force to be at the head of it."

"Ha! This isn't the head, Captain, this is the tail end." Danishevski muttered. "If the street knows about it, we're already a year behind."

"If you had your druthers, Danishevski, where would you take this thing?"

"The trash heap."

Dobey barked a laugh. "To get it moving faster."

The young cop thought for a long moment. "I meet with a group of guys on Saturday nights. All of them are into this techy stuff, and at least one of them works for the phone company. We spend most of the time drinking beer and tinkering all night."

"Sounds like our kinda guys, how about-"

"The problem is, Cap, they aren't all upstanding citizens. Most of what they're tinkering for…"

"Go ahead."

"...they want to find a way to expand...gambling, sir. Make it faster to lay down bets, get results, calculate odds...you see the more information they can get as soon as it happens the farther into the future they can lay down bets."

"You hang out with these characters?"

"One of them is my brother, Cap."

"They're not doing any gambling, yet, right?"

Danishevki shrugged and Dobey checked his watch. "Can you get that group together in the next hour?"

The kid nodded and Dobey thumped him on the back. "Go to it then. Let's see if we can't get something faster ready for the next phone call."

Starsky

It wasn't Danish's fault any more than it was Hutch's fault for getting kidnapped, or my fault for not being able to find him. The guy I should have been blowing up at was this joker dragging me all over town. Guy liked riddles, and scavenger hunts and games.

The only reason I was going along with his gig was because he'd sent a photo of Hutch, beat up and stuck in what looked very much like an airtight container with the day's newspaper. Even then we'd had a black and white go by Hutch's apartment to make sure he wasn't there.

We'd offered this cat money, a ticket outta town, amnesty, but all he wanted was to play his game. I automatically assumed he had something against either Hutch or I, or both, to be doing this, but...he lived and breathed this game he was playing.

Until we could get an idea of where he was calling from, we had no power over him.

We might have even been able to use the photo to pinpoint Hutch's location but it started to disintegrate the minute I pulled it from it's envelope. That was my fault. So maybe I was to blame for what was happening. But how was I supposed to know it was made of a material that fell apart when it came into contact with oxygen?

I parked in the empty parking lot of Dodger stadium and got on the horn. "I just had a thought." I said to the radio. "Find out where you can buy that stuff the photo was made of, and who normally does the buying. Talk to all the places, and see if they remember any purchases that were...uh...strange. I'm at Dodger Stadium. Over and out."

"Rodger, Zebra 3." Came over the radio. But it wasn't the normal sweet voice of Mildred. It was Captain Dobey. I had to be grateful, I told myself, that I worked for a captain that cared enough about his men that he would man the radio himself when one of them was in trouble.

In fact all of the police in the city were on standby, searching for my partner while trying to do their normal jobs. Great guys. Somehow it was important that we not disappoint them by letting my partner die.

I headed into the stadium, climbed a fence and trotted out onto the field where the joker had left a large manila envelope. The riddle inside was annoyingly sharp.

"You can always find me in the past. I can be created in the present, but the future can never taint me. What am I?"

An idea was buzzing at the back of my mind and I raced into the stands, taking the wide steps two at a time until I could see over the back wall. There...just visible over a fifteen story bank building were the marble columns of the history museum.

I almost tripped on the way down, raced to my car and bellowed, "History museum!" into the radio before I put the car in gear and tried to drive it without the engine on.

Crossing town was a nightmare, and there wasn't any parking. The history museum was full of children and their guardians enjoying their Saturday afternoon free of responsibility. I put the bubble on the top of the car and left the Torino on, with the parking brake pulled. There was an envelope taped to the back of one of the columns. I got there seconds before a little kid reached it.

He gave me a glare and I stuck my tongue out at him then opened the envelope. Flash powder hit me, a blast of smoke and heat that choked me and burned my face, eyebrows and hair. Just enough to be annoying, just enough to make me really want to strangle the guy doing this to us.

I was crawling back towards the envelope, desperately trying to cough my way to breathing again when I realized I had drawn a crowd. It didn't surprise me. A pair of beautiful, jogger legs in high heels appeared, bent to pick up the envelope then walked my way.

I rolled over onto my back and followed the legs up to a brown skirt, fitted business jacket and dark black hair. She had a tag on that identified her as an employee of the history museum.

She wanted to know if I was alright. I reached for the envelope and she gave it to me. I asked her what she did here, and if she remembered seeing a man or a woman put this envelope on the column.

She said she had. She'd been watching the column for two days, waiting to see who would pick it up.

I asked her for her name. She smiled and said, "Gloria."

"Gloria, do you think you could identify the person that left this envelope? Describe him or her to me, maybe."

"Of course." She said, her face earnest and sincere. "He was blonde, a little taller than you, pretty blue eyes. Wore a leather jacket and jeans, a lot like yours."

"Blue eyes?"

"Mmhmm." she nodded.

"Did he...did he say anything to you? Try to give you a message at all?" I asked.

"No. He seemed in a hurry. Kept checking his watch, tapping it...like this." She lifted my arm, and tapped away at the face of my watch.

Running out of time, Hutch, I know. And you were stuck doing the joker's dirty work. I looked at my watch, one more hour.

Gloria helped me to my feet and I was reaching my hand into the envelope when I heard the Eastern Columbia building clock start to chime. It was distant. Almost three miles from where I stood, but I could see the "EAS" of Eastern.

"Did he look there?" I asked, pointing.

"Wa- What?"

"There...the Columbia-Eastern Columbia building, did he look in that direction, more than once?"

"Yeah, he kept looking there, like he expected someone to meet him."

"Thank you! Thank you, Gloria! You're getting a civilian commendation for this!" I shouted, kissing Gloria on her lovely lips and charging down the steps for the Torino.

I was only able to get half-a-mile closer before I had to park the car. On foot I could cover the ground faster. Seconds before I could get on the horn to tell Dobey where I was going, he called me.

"We got another call Starsky. We tried to patch it through to you, but you didn't pick up. We were able to trace it. The caller is somewhere near the Eastern Columbia Clock Tower."

I was stunned. "Captain Dobey, you're the best captain in the history of captains. I think Hutch is in that tower too. I'm headed there on foot. Get some guys down here to clear up this traffic."

"Will do. Starsky...STARsky….Starsky!"

I ran 2.5 miles faster than I had ever run them before. My reputation preceded me down the sidewalk, people moving out of the way after I busted through the flower seller's cart and nearly wiped out a gaggle of nuns. I kept my badge in one hand, the other hand free to grab for my gun when I needed it. The wind stung against the burns on my face, but I didn't care.

Hutch, the genius, had given that museum guide the greatest clue he could've given. The wild goose chase would have continued on if I hadn't been hit by that blast, and helped by that beautiful, observant angel.

Now...with whatever magic Dobey and Danishevski had worked on the call trace machine, we maybe didn't just have Hutch. But the crazy behind it as well.

By the time I reached the double doors at the base of the Columbia building I could hear sirens, officers in progress, trying to clear up the streets. I kept my badge out, pulled my gun, and cleared the lobby with the help of two security guards. Then I went for the secretary.

"Air tight room."

"What!? What's going on-"

"Is there...an airtight….room. Somewhere in this building?" I asked, gasping so hard I might have been able to breathe tacks.

"Th-th-the coolers, in the basement. They store food down there."

"How many?"

"Twelve."

"Thank you."

Twelve. Twelve coolers. I tried to call up my brief look at the kidnap photo. The area behind Hutch had been dark, but there might have been shelves behind him. Empty. The room had been almost completely empty but for Hutch. No windows, or doors.

And no frost. No puff of air indicating he was in a cold cooler.

I raced down the steps and through the kitchen shouting, "Police. Get outta here. Coolers, where are they?"

A balding man with a chef's hat pointed me toward a long corridor and I raced down it. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… Where are the other six?"

"Down the other way, but half of 'em don't work." The chef shouted.

"Down where?"

He pointed me down a short set of steps into a corridor that was poorly lit and obviously infrequently used.

"Get your people outta here." I shouted, flashing my badge in his face before I charged down those steps. I should have been wondering where the guy was, but I didn't care. Hutch was there, somewhere in one of those four broken coolers. "Hutch!"

I grabbed the handle of the first one, found it locked, and shot the handle off. Dragging the door open got me a puff of air and an empty cooler. "Hutch! Answer me!"

The next one was locked and working, and the next one locked, broken and empty.

I was ready to shoot the lock off the third broken cooler when I heard the knocking. Tapping. Like Hutch tapping a watch. Only this was metal on concrete.

"Hutch!" Tapping, rhythmic. Morse code. I caught a "d" "o" and "n" together, then an "s" "h". "Don't sh-, Don't shoot. Hutch! Why…"

I tested the lock. It had no budge in it and I was running out of time. I ran back down the hall, searched the walls of the kitchen and finally found what I was looking for. I'd seen it used once in a fancy kitchen. It was one of those novelties that could kill ya if you used it wrong. On that particular day, however, I was grateful that whoever owned the Eastern Columbia Building, hired chefs with experience.

It took me two minutes to cake the lock in liquid nitrogen. It crackled angrily at me, reminding me of a book I'd read as a kid, about an explorer in the arctic.

I ran back to the kitchen and found two pot holders and a fire extinguisher, then ran back in time to hear "b" "o" "m". I smashed the lock with the fire extinguisher before I could hear the last letter. Frankly, I didn't want to know.

The lock shattered and I kicked the pieces away then forced the door open. I created a crack about a half a foot wide, then was hit in the chest with something heavy and metal. I backed away from the door, watched a small metal disc roll down the hallway, then called, "Hutch?"

There was gasping on the other side of the door, and I could hear the sound of a body dragging across the floor, before Hutch rasped, "Bomb...idiot."

"Hey! I'm saving your life."

The dragging continued until a grease covered hand appeared in the crack. I knelt and grabbed his hand and Hutch dragged mine into the cooler until I felt both his hands around mine.

"Grateful." He panted, "Grateful, but...tripwire."

He got to his knees and guided my hand up to the wire, pulled taut between the wall on the other side of the door and a pack of plastic explosives fixed to the door of the cooler.

"Did you see how he made the bomb? Or set the wire?" I asked.

"No." My partner panted, keeping hold of my hand.

"Why don't you ask this guy?" Dobey called from down the hall, pushing a bound prisoner in front of him.

"What? How?"

"I'll explain later, Starsky. You, how do we diffuse that bomb?"

Hutch

They kept me in the hospital for twenty-four hours, and Starsky was there with the Torino to take me home. I wanted a shower more than anything else, and time to sit on the porch, under the rays of the setting sun. Breathing as hard and as long as I wanted.

The absolute worst of my injuries, other than the possible concussion and the achyness that came with oxygen deprivation, was a cold. I'd caught the jokers cold. I think it was the cold that pushed Dobey over the edge, demanding that I take a week off.

My partner ordered a pizza and went out for some beer while I showered. I was hungry enough to eat the pizza and a burger, and a steak, and some fries, and maybe some ice cream. I wanted to drink a gallon of water and follow it with enough beer to make me numb for a while. A man has strange things on the brain when he's stuck in total darkness, not knowing how long he'll be there, or if he'll ever escape. I spent a lot of time dreaming about the food that might have once occupied the cooler I was stuck in.

My partner, the fourth quarter genius, arrived with two pizzas and a twelve pack. We sat on the veranda, surrounded by plants that needed some TLC, and stuffed our faces.

"How's your face?"

"It'll be fine." Starsk said, glancing at me through still growing eyelashes. "Doc says I was lucky. Any hotter and I'da lost my eyebrows for good."

"What a shame that would be."

"I know."

"You talk to Gloria?"

"I invited her to come over but she's busy tonight. She wants to meet you."

"She saved my life, I want to meet her."

"She's not the only one."

"I know. Danishevski is gonna bring his new machine over, show me how it works."

"You know he calls his pals, the "Dream Team"."

"What do they do on Saturday nights, anyway?"

"Build robots." Starsky said.

I laughed. "Robots?"

"Yeah." Starsk said. "Robots. You know...little guys on wheels. They put like...rocket launchers, and saw blades and hammers on them, and…" Starsky made his hands into fists and mashed his knuckles together. "...fight."

"Robot fights?"

"Yeah. It's real undergound-"

"I can see why."

"But they make bets on the robots. Like horses. And...Danish might've said something about improving the function of betting in general but-"

"We're overlooking that."

"Dobey is, anyway."

"They saved my life, they get a free pass this time."

"Your so magnani-mouse."

"Mus, Starsky. Magnani-mus."

"Mus, mouse, who cares."

"Shakespeare cares." I said.

"He's dead."

"And I'm alive."

Starsky grinned at me and raised his beer can. "Cheers to that, brother."


	9. Old Ford

"There we go, partner. There we are. Comfy?"

Starsky nodded, eyes trying to close, but he was fighting the pull of the pain killers they'd given him at the hospital.

"Want anything to drink? Any food?" Hutch asked.

"No, I'm fine. Hey...just, sit down. Enjoy the view with me."

The cabin they had planned to bring themselves and their girlfriends to had instead become a place for Starsky's recuperation. Fresh air, gentle exercise in the tidal pool, salt water, and plenty of sun had been the doctor's recommendation.

After a moment of thought Hutch finally sat in a reclining deck chair next to his partner.

"I want you to tell me something." Starsky slurred. "And I want you to be completely honest with me."

"Well I wouldn't lie to you, Starsk."

"I'm not saying you would."

"I should hope not."

"Will you let me ask my question?"

"Go ahead."

"Why...of all the cars, on all the roads, in all the world...why did you love that car?"

Hutch gave a sigh, mind reeling back to the beautiful tan Ford with a sandstone hood, cloth seats, and a horn that activated on its own once the doors were opened. That car had been blown to smithereens. Starsky had almost been blown to smithereens and Hutch came away from the explosion with a headache and minus one car.

"It's...it's plain."

"Is that a nice way of saying 'ugly'?"

"I'm not a flashy man, Starsky."

"I know that."

"You know, when I was little I had an uncle. He drove this lovely tan and wood stain, 4-door Ford Deluxe Stationwagon."

"A station wagon!?"

"It may have been the ugliest car on the block but I thought it was a chariot. It had all that room in the back, the front dash was stained wood. And the seats always smelled new. My uncle was the coolest guy I knew. Leather jacket, hair combed back, the car always looked good, and he always had the crooners on the radio."

"Crooners?"

"Yeah, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Bing Crosby, Dino. Every Saturday night, without fail, he would come pick me up and we would cruise."

"Cruise.." Starsky chuckled. "In a station wagon."

Hutch shrugged and stared out at the setting sun. "He was proud of that car. Always kept it in prime condition. Even when it got a nick or scratch he managed to make the car seem all the better. War wounds, he called them. Now, the first time I ever drove a car of my own, I wanted a station wagon just like my uncle had. Same color, same year, make, model."

"And?"

"And I found one. In a scrap yard."

"And?"

"And I worked for a year getting that baby put back together."

Starsky gave his partner a look that said, 'quit stalling already'.

"I crashed it."

"You what!?"

"I-I crashed it, straight into a tree."

"So you're punishing yourself by buying horrible Fords?"

"Starsky…"

"Has a car ever survived you?"

"Starsk-"

"What year was the station wagon?"

"Nevermind."

"Hey wait a minute. Where are you going?"

"Gettin' a beer."

"We don't have any beer. Hey, do you still have my keys?"

Starsky squirmed in the chair, not really able to get out of it on his own. "Hutch?"

An engine started, racing loudly before the car was put in reverse.

"That's my Torino. He's taking my-HUUUUUUUTCH!"


	10. Marathon

Marathon

Starsky

"Hey Starsk...are you sure you want to do this?"

"Will you quit asking me that? And quit helping, you're stabbing me with them pins."

"This is your first marathon. I want to make sure you're ready for the commitment it takes."

"What advice or training can you possibly give me….thirty minutes before the start, huh?"

"Quit. Quit now, while you still can."

"You're just mad that you registered late, and you've gotta start all the way back there."

Hutch gave me a guilty look that turned into a mockery of patriarchal care. He boxed my shoulders and shook me a little then said, "I just don't want you to hurt yourself."

"Uh huh. Get back to your place in line."

"Now remember, you're representing the police department."

"Get back in line!"

"Don't let all those boys in blue down. You can't quit."

"I'm not gonna quit, will you get back in line!"

"When the chips are down…"

"There's a marathon official right there…"

"And you're down to your last ounce of strength…"

"He's gonna see ya, and you're gonna get disqualified…"

"Remember...we're rootin' for ya kid."

I gave Hutch a look of disgust and he clocked me on the chin just a little harder than was necessary, or friendly. He disappeared into the crush of runners before the official spotted him and I glanced over at Dodger Stadium where the marathon timer hung.

Unlike some marathons this one wouldn't end where it began. The race started just outside the stadium and ended at Santa Monica where there were supposed to be shuttles to take us back to our cars. Twenty-six long, grueling miles through downtown LA and out toward the sea. Still it was a beautiful day, scheduled high of 76 degrees, and there were more fit, talented female athletes participating than ever before in the history of this marathon.

The original plan for marathon day had been to run the race in about five hours, or less, go for a massage and overload on carbs at the finish line, then go home, shower, drink a beer and take the next two days off.

However, BANG!

That's not how it happened.

Hutch

The first mile and a half were a no sweat affair. All about finding your pace and settling into it. You don't sprint in a race like this unless you're a cheetah, or have a death wish. I was settling in, matching pace with a runner who looked like she'd been an athlete from childhood. She gave me a smile when I brushed up next to her, and looked like she was about to ask me a question, when I heard sirens ahead.

I was probably about thirty minutes behind Starsky, and I somehow knew that he was the reason for the sirens. A mile and a half into the race, meant he had started to get bored. Thirty minutes was plenty of time for him to get into trouble. We passed an alley filled with flashing emergency lights and I noticed Starsky, standing in his running shorts, with one foot on the chest of a guy face down in the mud.

Starsky noticed me passing him and tried to shout at me to stop, but I ignored him. He wanted to solve crime on his day off, that was his prerogative. I was there to run a marathon.

"You know, you forget that life goes on for some people on days like today." The girl next to me said.

"I know what you mean...crime, cops…"

"Do you think that runner was a cop, or just a good samaritan?" She asked, craning her neck back toward the alley.

"He's probably not even a runner. Probably just faking the first part of the race to get off duty."

"Huh…" The girl said, pouting a little before she picked up her pace.

A quarter mile later I was considering turning around and going back to help Starsky with the bust when I noticed a familiar car, and even more familiar face parked outside a small Christian church on the edge of Chinatown. Small time hood, I couldn't remember his last name but he called himself Bernie. I watched him jerk a ski cap over his face, grab a crowbar and start toward the poor box hanging on the outside wall of the church.

If it hadn't been for Chinatown, I might've let it go. But that church was losing everything with the growth of the chinese population. Losing the contents of that poor box might have been catastrophic.

I had to do something.

Starsky

Back in the race. I was behind Hutch by about ten minutes but I felt good about myself. The lady being mugged in that alley was grateful. She even told me she had a daughter running in the race. She took my number and promised to introduce us after the day was over.

I was floating pretty high until we passed by Chinatown and I noticed a familiar pair of orange shorts and brown sneakers struggling with somebody behind a beat up station wagon. Right when I was about to leave the race course to help, Hutch stood up, looking a little disheveled but whole, a crowbar in one hand, and the jacket of the perp in the other.

"You got 'em, champ!" I shouted, flashing two thumbs up as the crowd of runners passed them. Hutch caught me out of the corner of his eye and shouted something that I didn't catch. I picked up my speed, running ahead until I caught sight of a lovely lady jogging at about my speed. I got parallel with her and was surprised when she said, "Hey! You're that guy!"

"Yeah, I'm that guy. What guy am I?"

"You...you were making an arrest or something. We passed by you earlier."

"Oh that guy. Yeah that was me."

"That was real brave."

I gave her a dashing smile. "Thank you."

"I like guys who are brave like that."

"Really, uh…" I ran backwards a few steps so that I could read her name tag. "Rebecca. That's a nice name. So you go out with brave guys?"

"Mmhmm. Like Ernie."

"Ernie?"

"Ernie's a cop."

"Ernie's a cop. And you're dating this Ernie?"

"We've been going steady for three years now."

"That's...sweet."

"There he is now! Hi, Ernie, honey!" The girl called and I looked over to see the biggest, meanest looking cop in L.A. He was smiling at Rebecca until he caught sight of me.

Hutch

Back on the course.

There were enough uniforms around that all it took was a quarter mile of jogging and I found one to send back to the would-be thief now hogtied with his own shoelaces in the back of his own car. The cop was the biggest I'd ever seen on the force in all the years I'd been there. I gave him my badge number and told him I would fill out the report after the marathon.

Starsky had maybe passed me twenty minutes before. I was sure I could catch up with him, but the fight, and avoiding a crowbar in the face, had taken a lot out of me. I kept my pace conservative for a mile or so, gradually running faster as the view and the energy from the crowd began to grow.

As luck would have it, it didn't take long for me to catch up with the lovely runner from before. I jogged backward in front of her to catch her name then grinned at her. "Rebecca, fancy meeting you here."

She gave me a sad smile and a half-hearted, "Hey."

"What's the matter. You gettin' tired? Do you need to sit down?"

"No..I just...I met that guy. You know the guy from the alley. But then he just disappeared without saying goodbye."

"Oh…" I said, panting. "You mean the guy in the al- well, like I told ya, he's probably just out here playin' hooky."

Mile 6 passed Echo Park, the skyline on one side, and Dodger Stadium distant on the other side. The sun had begun to climb, and even though the high was supposed to stay in the 70s, it felt like we'd already surpassed 75 degrees. I happened to glance toward the lake and noticed one runner cooling off in the water.

"See, like that guy. Not serious about the craft, not willing to stick it out."

"I don't think he's swimming. It looks like he's dragging something." Rebecca said, slowing her pace for a water station. I followed her to the sidelines and grabbed water for both of us, watching the wayward marathoner up until I recognized the soaking wet, brown-haired head.

I jogged toward the iron fence that bordered the park and watched long enough to make sure my partner made it out of the lake, with whatever he was saving. A dog...he was saving a dog. The kids were screaming in delight and my partner was soaking wet, but he seemed happy enough about his efforts when he spotted me.

Rebecca and I waved goodbye and jogged back into the flow of runners.

Starsky

I should've called it quits then. I mean, running while soaking wet is not recommended for mankind. I'd managed to get my sneakers off before I jumped into the lake, but every other part of me was dripping and itchy and smelled like the wrong end of a duck.

I would have quit, gone home, taken a shower and returned to the finish line to cheer on my partner, if he hadn't stood there, with Rebecca, giving me a smart alecky wave. That got my blood boiling and I tripped across the ground, shoving my wet socks into my tennis shoes. Determined to make up the time I'd lost responding to children's screams.

By the time I started to dry there was a sizeable gap between me and most of the rest of the runners. I was itching too, all over my chest and arms but I tried to ignore it, focusing on the run. Mile 9 passed the Barndall House and went through Thai town. It was close to 10 am then and easily over 75 degrees. I passed a watering station and downed three cups before moving on, feeling like my skin was crawling.

I knew Hutch was somewhere ahead, having an easy time of it, chatting with Rebecca. But there was no way, after all that ribbing, I was going to let him finish without me. A part of me wanted to set Rebecca's boyfriend on Hutch for good measure. Revived by the water I pushed harder, squishing in my wet socks at a faster pace until I could see the blonde blintz' straight locks bouncing ahead.

I had him, and had every intention of passing him by when the blare of a fire alarm hit. Smoke was pouring out of the back of a Thai restaurant up the street. The problem was the nearest fire station wouldn't be able to get through the crowd the marathon had drawn to do anything about it. I watched my partner's head turn toward the commotion and knew what he was thinking seconds before he left the race course and pushed through the crowd watching the marathon.

I couldn't very well let my buddy put out a fire all by himself, and I was already wet.

Hutch

It was a grease fire, easily taken care of if you didn't have three Taiwanese women pounding on your shoulders with flour covered fists. I couldn't understand their language and they clearly couldn't understand mine. I couldn't get close enough to the source of the fire to even hope to put it out with the ladies hounding me.

I was delighted to hear the words, "Hey Hutch!" come out of my partner's mouth as he slung a trashcan lid my way. I caught it, barreled past the ladies and slammed the lid down on the burning pot of oil, snuffing out the oxygen feeding the fire.

Of course the heat had to go somewhere and in seconds the trash can lid was too hot to hold on to. I yelped and danced away from the flame, shouting, "Fire extinguisher."

"Uh...uh…" Starsky fumbled around behind me then overturned the trash can, dumping out the trash. He knocked the trash can lid from the pot, then put the whole trash can over the wood fire and the pot of oil. The heat buckled the trashcan in on itself but the fire went out, starved of fuel.

The ladies hadn't once stopped chattering, and kept pointing toward the back entrance of the restaurant. I glanced in and found a young man curled in a ball against the kitchen wall, his hands badly burned. "Starsk, get an ambulance down here. I think I passed one on the corner of Prospect and Vermont."

"Your hands ok?"

"Yeah, yeah, go on." The kid fought me at first until I filled a pitcher with cold tap water and guided one of his hands into it. That took care of some of the pain for him and he stood with my help, stumbling to the sink where I turned on the cold water and let it run. 2nd degree burns. Painful, but not deadly as long as we stopped the burning. The oil was going to make it worse for him.

"You speak English, kid?"

"Yes, yes, English." The kid said, his face taut with pain.

"Can you tell me why they were hitting me earlier."

"You ruin donuts." He said.

"D-donuts? What about you? What about the pot of oil on fire?"

"Oil is cheap. Donuts, expensive."

"Unbelievable."

Starsky

I had to have set a land speed record getting to that ambulance crew. I also felt the start of a half-dozen blisters on my feet as I charged down that alley. The minute the ambulance crew heard the words fire and burns they did a full u-turn in the intersection, and sped back down the alley with me clinging to the side, until they reached the restaurant. I'll be damned if those ladies hadn't already kicked the can away from the pot of grease, and weren't working on relighting the fire.

I got on the horn and called for any officer in the area to come down and prevent a second fire from happening, then went to check on my partner. His hands were bright red, but there weren't any blisters. One of the paramedics was approaching him with a tub of salve when Hutch said, "You know all this "saving the day" nonsense is you putting off running that marathon."

I protested until the look of triumph entered Hutch's eyes. "You're on." I said, then charged through the restaurant and back onto the race course.

I was now ahead, and determined to stay that way. No more Mr. Nice Cop.

Mile 14 marked the highpoint of heat for the day. 88 degrees. A record for that particular time of the month. I was passing a water station set up outside the Roxy Theatre when the first few runners started to go down. I helped a guy twice my age into the shade and grabbed him some water, then splashed some over my own face, passed the Bruce Springsteen sign and was about to step back into the mainstream of runners when I caught sight of a familiar spray of brunette hair, and long legs.

The Roxy was a nightclub now, but it had once been a strip club. One of the former strippers, now a cocktail waitress was in the alley, probably headed home from work, desperately trying to change a tire. There were two guys with her, but they weren't helping. One was sitting on the hood of the car smoking a cigar, and the other one kept kicking the tire Missy was trying to change.

I had shouted, "Hey." before I'd really thought through the logistics of the situation. I drew their attention immediately and decided that, like with a bear, pretending to be bigger and meaner than I really was might just work. I had stomped halfway down the alley before the bruiser on the hood got to his feet. He was a lot taller than I thought.

The other guy didn't feel the need to move just yet, but took one look at me and started laughing.

"Missy, you havin' trouble with these jokers?"

"Nah, Starsky. They're just crumbs I gotta get around to sweeping under the rug." Missy called back, but I could tell she was scared.

This would have been a good time to have had my gun, or my badge, or both. Having neither was not helpful.

"Well, Missy, why don't you pick on somebody your own size, huh? Let these miscreants go this one time."

That got a meek smile out of Missy, and the undivided attention of both of the goons. The one tossed his cigar into the puddle at his feet and the other pulled out a pair of brass knuckles.

"Who are these guys anyway, your brothers?" I asked, resisting the urge to backpedal, and standing my ground.

"Bouncers. At the Roxy. They just can't take no for an answer." Missy called, slowly moving away from the tire she'd been trying to change, and grabbing her purse from the back seat of the car.

That's right, Missy, I thought, run home. You can worry about your car later.

"That's what happens to punch drunk stumble bums like these ugly mugs. The English language flies right past 'em. Uh...hey fellas, listen-hurk!"

Hutch

I should've kept running. I shouldn't have stopped. I should have put my head down and ignored the scream and pretended I wasn't a cop. It was Starsky's own fault. He'd been getting himself into trouble all morning just to avoid the marathon. It served him right to have one of those situations get out of hand.

But I heard the scream, and I slowed down and I turned down that alley and launched myself onto the back of the bruiser pounding a brass knuckle set into my partner's chest. I hung on until I was slammed against the brick wall on the other side of the alley.

Starsky had recovered enough to grab a trash can lid and slam it against the face of the guy with tobacco stains on his lip. I got a couple of knocks in the ribs before the guy hitting me broke the number one rule of an alley fight. His knee came up and I suddenly couldn't breathe, or think, or move.

Starsky must have seen or heard it, because he paid the brass-knuckle guy back in kind. He went down like a snow man, melting in the oppressive heat that none of LA had been expecting.

"Thanks...for your help...but I had this...covered." Starsky gasped, one arm wrapped around his ribs. I glared at him, sick to my stomach, and not yet ready to talk. He got close enough for me to jerk his shirt up and wince at the bruises already forming.

"Covered, huh?" I grunted in return, not sure if Starsky was operating on stubborn wounded pride alone, or if at some point that morning he'd received a blow to the head. Both might explain why he had gone up against two guys twice his size, and more well armed, than he was.

"Who are these guys?" I asked, still not able to stand straight.

"Bouncers."

"You know what they do for a living, right?" I demanded and watched Starsky nod his head, dazed. "Alright, that's it. We're taking you to the hospital and then home."

"No."

"Starsky…" I whined.

"This is my first time running a marathon. I'm not gonna quit now."

"Starsk…" I groaned and yanked his shirt up again then tested the tenderness of one of the bruises and nodded my head at his reaction, my point made. "You can't run with ribs like that."

"I'll jog."

"Unbelievable...listen, pal. I won't hold it against ya. You've done more in fourteen miles than anybody running a marathon has ever done."

"Are you gonna finish?"

The throbbing was fading, and I didn't think permanent damage had been done. I wasn't willing to finish the marathon with the pain I was in, but I didn't want him finishing alone. "No. I'm done."

"You're lying."

"What!? Starsky…"

"You're gonna run." Starsky said, then turned and stomped back toward the marathon.

At that point I didn't have a choice, did I?

Starsky

My pride was bruised, admittedly, after I nearly lost my teeth to those two jerks in the alley. Even with a couple of knocks to the ribs the thought of giving up and going home ate at me. It was just a couple of miles, I told myself. Like a long hike, a stroll down the beach. Nothin. I could do it in my sleep.

I grabbed some water at the relief station and pulled back into the race, back with the stragglers now, but not quite with the walkers.

My partner was staggering along beside me in minutes, and I had to admit, at least to myself, that I felt better with him there.

"You're crazy, you know that?"

"You're the one running beside me." I said.

We ran together for about four miles, picking up the pace a little here or there. The further we ran the more runners we saw, sitting on the curb, outdone by the heat.

"Record breaking high on the same day as the marathon. That's gotta be some kinda punishment." I said, dripping sweat.

My partner looked just as beat but we kept going up until a runner collapsed thirty feet in front of us, tripping up the runners behind him and causing a major pile up. I managed to avoid it but Hutch got trapped in the mess.

By the time we had the injured parties off to the side and the rest of the runners on their way, Hutch had a bruised and scraped knee bleeding down his leg, and was limping pretty bad.

"Still gonna run?" I asked, and Hutch tried to yank my shirt up again. I slapped his hand and said, "Quit doing that, I'm fine."

"Sure you are."

"Are you still gonna run?!" I demanded.

"What do you think?" Hutch asked, limping to the relief station to snag waters for the both of us.

Dobey

The first report of my officers, Sergeants Starsky and Hutchinson, getting involved in an incident came nearly at the start of the race. I had been stationed in Santa Monica, there to keep an eye on the ending ceremonies and of course welcome the two men representing our precinct at the finish line.

Except that I kept getting reports of police officers wearing jogging clothes, making busts all over town. Every time one of my uniformed men got there, neither Starsky nor Hutch were anywhere to be found.

Six hours after the marathon had begun the winners started to roll in and the ceremony started swiftly. The winners were given medals and those suffering from heat exhaustion treated. After another hour I asked every uniformed cop assigned to the marathon to keep an eye out for my two wayward sergeants and call in the minute they were spotted.

The first man to call in was a young rookie, fresh out of the academy. He was nearly squealing with excitement when he radioed in the location of my men. At the 20th mile, moving at a slow jog. "They look like they've been through a war zone, Cap." The kid said.

By three pm I had a sighting at the 24th mile, but it sounded like the two were headed off the marathon course and toward the Riviera Country Club. Some gentlemen in a golf cart were kind enough to redirect them back to the road.

The marathon ended at the Annenberg Community Beach House. A large, sprawling mansion that once belonged to William Randolph Hearst, back in the popular newspaper magnates' heyday. Now it was the sight of hundreds of beach goers taking advantage of the abnormally hot day, and should've been where my men showed up along with the rest of the marathoners.

That didn't happen until 5pm. At 5:01, followed by a dozen officers in uniform holding back traffic and keeping a safe distance between my men and the crowd, Starsky and Hutch hobbled toward the finish line.

Hutch's hands were bright red, burned by the grease fire I'd heard about. He was limping heavily on a swollen knee and looked ready to collapse. His partner wasn't any better. One arm was wrapped around his ribs and he'd taken his shoes off at some point, pushing ahead in mud and blood stained socks. I couldn't tell which one was holding which up, but I had the idea that if either one let go, they would both go down.

The officers on both sides of the street, as well as civilians and well baked beach goers were cheering ecstatically as the two men came within inches of the finish line. To the astonishment of the entire crowd they stopped one step away.

Hutch

"Why'd...why'd we stop?" Starsky asked.

"I dunno. I think...I think I want to quit."

"Quit? Quit what? The marathon? That's the ocean...pal, we...we can't be that far from the finish line."

"Ocean?" I asked, barely able to open my eyes. I felt like I'd been stuffed into an oven set to broil.

"Yeah, we could..go for a swim or something."

"This isn't a triathlon, Starsk." I said, pulling my partner forward again. After a second I felt him push from behind and we were once again moving.

"What's a triathlon?"

"It's like a marathon...only...instead of just running you...you swim, and bike…"

Starsky shook his head, not saying anything until our feet finally hit sand. It was burning hot sand, but it had to have felt better than the asphalt he'd been walking on before. "Running is...hard enough work."

We stumbled forward until we hit cold surf and the two of us gradually sat down. The water washed over my leg and my groin, feeling like heaven. I heard Starsky give a satisfied groan beside me.

"Do you think they'll let us stay here?"

"Who?" I asked.

"All those guys, following us."

"Guys?"

"You didn't notice?"

I propped myself up on my elbows and glanced back toward the beach road, squinting at a line of cheering men and women in blue uniforms.

"There's tons of cops following us around." Starsky said.

"I think you're paranoid." I said.

"Hey...did we finish?" Starsky asked.

"We had to have. We're at the ocean. And Santa Monica ends at ocean. So...we have to have finished."

"Well...who won?"


	11. Fever

Hutch got the call a few minutes after he arrived at work and found Starsky not there. He heard the words "Torino" and "crashed" and charged out of the police station, pushing the Ford Galaxie faster than it'd ever gone before. He had to reconfirm with dispatch the location of the crash and he vaguely heard them say the word fatality.

He arrived on the scene to find a distinct lack of ambulances or emergency personnel. Just one loan cruiser and the Torino. The front end was a mess. Whatever it had hit had been lower than the top of the hood and on the driver's side. But there was no second car, nor a likely building near enough to have caused the damage. Worse, there was no driver.

"Starsky...where's..hey you!" Hutch tried to get the attention of the cop that stood by his cruiser, unconcerned, smirking into his handset. "Where's my partner?"

The cop kept up his conversation pointing toward a bulldozer with a shovel on a hydraulic arm. At first Hutch was certain he was being ignored, but the cop pointed more emphatically and Hutch realized there was communication going on that he was missing.

He followed the pointed finger and jogged toward the machine, reaching for the jacket of the operator who was picking himself up off the pavement, looking as dazed as Hutch felt.

The man seemed dizzy under the hard hat and was struggling against Hutch even while he was trying to regain his feet.

"What happened?" Hutch demanded, shaking the man. The stitched name on his coveralls was Harry.

The hard hat rattled and Harry, the bearded operator, clamped a hand down on the orange plastic, "What the...what the HELL is going on today!?"

"I'm a police officer. See?" Hutch produced a badge and held it close to the man's face until two eyes focused on it and Harry nodded. "That Torino over there belongs to my partner."

"Then you wanna tell me why he hijacked my bucket and tried to kill a car with it?"

"He what?"

"He jumped up here, knocked me outta my seat and swung my bucket there right into that...what-you-call-it."

"A Torino, TORINO!" Hutch shouted. "Which way did he go?"

"Which one?"

"What do you mean which one? The guy driving the Torino!"

"That way…" Harry muttered, sweeping his hand toward a puddle filled alley. "They both went that way."

Both? The word caught up with Hutch halfway down the alley and he reached for his gun, skidding to a halt on mud and asphalt before he passed recklessly in front of a break in the solid brick wall. He bent his knees a little before jutting his head around the corner. The break lead to open road, if you could get through the clutter of cardboard boxes and trash cans.

Hutch kept going, tearing across the ground until the alley ended, spilling onto a side street. What looked like a deserted side street, he realized, feeling some of the immediacy of his impromptu chase bleeding out. After all...he had no idea what was going on, where Starsky was, why he was hijacking bulldozers.

The smart thing, he thought, heart pounding, lungs catching up, would be to put out an APB on his partner. The smart thing would be to go back and get a better idea of what had happened from that stunned bulldozer operator. The smart thing...would not be what he was doing currently.

That is, crossing the street and continuing down the narrow alley between buildings.

He was thinking about the smart thing, and not about anything that might have lead to fire escapes or rooftops, but something made him look up. He caught the heel of a blue Adidas disappearing from the top of a fire escape onto a roof of a building and he thought long and hard about his partner. Why would Starsky, as a rule afraid of heights, willingly climb to the top of a building?

It was an answer Hutch decided he had to know and he found a ladder that would get him closer to it. He made himself slow up as the berm of the building grew closer and leaned his head back from the edge before inching upward. What he saw was his partner either fighting with, or being beaten up by, a rather large blonde man in a leather jacket.

Starsky already had a bloody nose, and he'd given the blonde man a puffy lip and a cut over his eye, but as scrappy as the easterner was, he was looking woozy. Hutch pulled himself onto the roof and pulled his gun, keeping the muzzle trained at the gravel and tar paper. Just a show of force, he thought, grabbing his badge too.

"Police, freeze!" Hutch shouted, managing to sound confused under the authority of the statement. The muscle-bound blonde might not have caught the uncertainty, but his partner did, and he looked away at the wrong moment, taking a hard right to the jaw that spun him around and dumped him on the rooftop.

"Hold it!" Hutch shouted, pointing his gun more intentionally at the blonde. The big man put his hands up and backed away a few unsteady steps, while both of them watched Starsky orient.

Starsky coughed a few times, spat blood at the gravel that covered the roof, then got to his hands and knees.

"Put your hands on your head." Hutch shouted, and the blonde man looked resigned and angry, but did as he was told.

"Get on your knees." Hutch added, pocketing his badge and covering the length of tar between him and the blonde man, patting him down quickly and fitting, or trying to fit, one cuff around his wrist. The cuffs were almost too small.

"Anything wrong with your chest?" Hutch asked, keeping a knee in the small of the man's back. He still hadn't figured out how the Torino crashing into a shovel had turned into fisticuffs on a rooftop, but he wasn't about to risk accidentally killing someone who didn't deserve it beforehand. The giant blonde shook his head and Hutch said, "Alright, lie down. On your stomach. Don't move."

The blonde man did it, still out of breath from either the climb or the fight, or both.

Starsky hadn't moved much from getting to his hands and knees.

Hutch holstered his weapon before he analysed his partner from a distance. There was something just a hair off about his balance, his grip on the roof, the way he kept his body stiff-

Seconds later Starsky started to heave and Hutch nodded to himself. He got behind his partner, but stayed back, waiting for the sickness to pass before he helped a quivering Starsky away from the putrid puddle. Starsky's position had guaranteed that little of it went with him, and Hutch produced a handkerchief to take care of the rest.

"Starsk?"

"Hey Hutch."

The closer he got to his partner the more he could tell. Starsky was burning up. He smelled of vomit and cold medicine and probably an ill-planned beef burrito. He shouldn't have been on his feet, much less on the roof of the building. Hutch wanted to get him to a hospital and then in bed as soon as possible but Starsky didn't seem capable of climbing down just yet.

"What the heck's goin' on, buddy?"

"He...stole my car." Starsky managed, breathing narrowly through his nose, entirely focused on not throwing up again.

"Repo, repo'd your car." The blonde said, speaking mostly into gravel.

"He took your car, so you smashed it with a bulldozer?"

"What?" Starsky demanded weakly.

"He tried to kill me!" Blondie declared, grunting against the taut pull of the cuffs.

"Can you make it to your feet?" Hutch asked, concerned at the bewildered crease in his partner's brow, and deciding that the gory details of the fate of the Torino could wait.

Starsky was silent, focusing on controlling his stomach. "He hit me, Hutch."

"Yeah I can tell that. Looks like you hit him, too."

"He's crazy!" The blonde retorted, still face-down against the roof.

"Tried to steal my car, Hutch. Told him...it was my car."

"Yeah, it's your car alright. You know you got a fever, pal?"

"Hmm?"

Starsky was, by degrees, leaning back against Hutch's chest, until his partner was practically supine and unconscious. Exhausted, Hutch hoped, and not something worse. The brunet had looked a little worn out before the weekend had begun but had insisted that he was fine, and more, that he was going to take it easy.

Hutch didn't know what had happened between then and now, and he wasn't sure it mattered. Over his shoulder he asked the blonde hulk, "Were you the one driving the Torino?"

"Torino?" The blonde said, starting to grunt.

Hutch heard knees scraping on gravel and glanced over his shoulder to find the blonde face planting on the roof so that he could get his hind-end into the air. A precursor to getting to his feet. "Stay down." Hutch growled, feeling a little like he was trying to juggle three eggs in the air, one of which was fresh from a boiling pot of water.

The blonde grunted, but did what he was told, rolling to one side. "I got a repo order in my pocket. But it wasn't for no Torino. Plymouth Satellite Sebring. '73 Cherry red with a white blaze."

Hutch felt Starsky squirm a little and heard what might have been a snort, then a giggle. Then his partner made sick noises again and went still.

"What's the license plate number?" Hutch asked, bracing Starsk so that he could be flipped the minute anything substantial came up.

"637 ONN. Just like curly-top there."

"FIVE-three-seven…" Starsky slurred, struggling to rouse again.

Hutch decided getting his partner to his feet was a good idea and went with it, getting Starsky most of the way upright before his partner began to sag.

"No, no, no, come on. Walking."

"Walking...I don't want to walking." Starsky protested, wincing at the weight on his knees like a man of 80.

"You climbed up here, Starsk, you're gonna have to climb down."

"Climb?" Starsky's fevered brow came to rest against Hutch's chin, one of his arms slung across Hutch's shoulders. Hutch winced at how much heat was there.

There was no way. Hutch couldn't, on his own, get his partner down to the ground. There was a roof access door but it was chained, and he couldn't carry Starsky and bust through the chain and who knew how many other locked doors at the same time. Especially not without having an angry building owner and an angrier Captain Dobey on his case.

"What's your name?" Hutch called, looking to the blonde man still face down on the rooftop.

"Vaughn." The man grunted, rocking to the side again so that he could see the two cops.

"You work for a bank? Or are you freelance?"

"I work for an auto broker." The blonde grunted, irritated. "The car I was repo-ing. HIS car-"

"Not my car." Starsky retorted petulantly.

"That's right." Vaughn cooed. "It belongs to the autobroker now, cause you're short on payments."

Hutch found himself suddenly fighting a surge of energy from his partner, Starsky's sneakers leaving grooves in the gravel on the roof before his battered body protested. Starsky bent over the arms Hutch had hastily thrown around his waist and started to dry heave.

Hutch wanted to berate his partner then and there, but could he very well punish someone as sick as Starsky was? For protecting something that he loved, as much as Starsky loved that oversized stop sign? Hardly.

"Look! We'll settle this down at the police station. In the meantime you've been harassing a police officer who is, as far as I can tell, out of his mind with fever so you've got two choices. You can help me get him down that ladder...or you can stay handcuffed on the roof of this building until I manage to get him down on my own, to the hospital, home and settled and then-"

"Okay, I'll help. Jesus! The both of you are nuts!"

Starsky had managed to calm his stomach and straightened a little, thrusting his left arm over Hutch's shoulders again and practically asleep on his feet. He'd also, apparently, just noticed that his nose was damaged and was inspecting the blood on his fingers with intent confusion.

"Aw Starsk...you're a real mess, you know that?"

"S'not a nice thing to say, Hutch…" Starsky murmured.

Hutch focused on fishing in his pockets for the cuff keys, gradually getting Starsky and himself closer to the cuffed prisoner. Every few seconds he felt Starsky try to walk away, tugging him along with, like a puppy on a leash.

Getting him down the ladder was worse. With Vaughn, the blonde repo man, offering support from above, and Hutch down below the climb wasn't too bad until the time came to drop the five feet to the alley floor. Starsky's fear of heights kicked in tenfold and he clung to the ladder refusing to let go. He had what he must have thought was a convincing argument for an alternate solution. Something to do with an ambulance with wings and chopper blades, floating hospital beds and at least one submarine.

In fact his argument seemed so readily familiar that it only took Hutch a moment to realize that he was describing the sci-fi movie of the week that had been showing every night around midnight for the past seven days. With Vaughn prying Starsky's fingers from the ladder, and Hutch supporting most of Starsky's lower body weight and promising his partner icecream for a week, they finally managed to get the sick man down.

While Hutch convinced his partner that he was now on the ground, and no longer needed to fear falling to his untimely death, he noticed the brief glances of concern coming from Vaugn. Starksy may have ruined his day, but the big man likely had a heart sandwiched somewhere between the other overdeveloped muscles in his chest.

Once Starsky was (mentally) stable enough to move, Vaughn stepped in readily, offering support on one side while Hutch took the other. Between the two of them they got Starsky down the alley and into "...the ugliest cah this side of the continental divide...and you didn't know that I knew about that did ya, Hutch. But I do...I watched a special. I know all about the continental divide, and the titanic plates and earthquakes and everything…"

The drive to the hospital was long, made worse by midday traffic, with Vaughn cuffed again in the back seat, moaning about the unending narration provided by a delirious Starsky. Hutch focused on the road, and the chatter on the radio becoming more heated, and more intent. There was barely a second between Hutch registering the call for Zebra Three and Starsky's lunge for the hand set.

Hutch couldn't stop him in time.

"This is the Puce Goose and the Blonde Blintz, reporting for duty. What's happenin', Cap-i-tan?" Starsky blurted, breaking into giggles before Hutch managed to pry the handset from his grip.

"Starsky! Hutchinson! I-"

Hutch pushed down the call button, wincing slightly as he cut the captain off, not in the mood to hear what the man had to say. He held it down for a ten count then cautiously released the button, listening to the static for a bit.

He took a deep breath then calmly responded, "Captain, this is Hutchinson. I'm taking Starsky to the hospital and have a prisoner. I'd like to request that a black and white meet us there, and will happily explain the morning's events once Starsky has been admi- Starsky…"

The passenger door was open, Starsky was preparing to step out of the car, apparently unconcerned that it was moving. Slowly, but still moving.

His partner looked up, mildly surprised and doughy eyed.

"Where are you going?" Hutch asked, struggling to keep his tone even.

"To the hospital." Starsky slurred.

"We're not there yet."

"Oh…" Starsky responded, then tugged the door closed.

Hutch shook his head. "Gonna cuff you to the car next, if you don't stay put.." He muttered, toggling the radio. "Soon as I cut through this traffic, I'll meet you at County General, Cap."

It took him a minute to respond, but the Captain finally confirmed the plan and the radio went silent for a bit. Hutch hunted for the bubble, usually stored somewhere on Starsky's side, while they sat at a stoplight.

Eventually the light, the siren and Hutch at the horn cleared a path and they picked up some time. In between honks of the horn Hutch was throwing his arm toward his partner, dragging him back into the seat, or pushing him upright. His partner had always had a childlike enthusiasm for certain things, but never had Hutch pitied his partner's mother more. Sick Starsky was a handful.

The hospital had been prepped. Starsky's favorite nurse stood waiting under the ER bay with Captain Dobey, a doctor and a gurney. The transfer to the rolling bed was a breeze once Starsky recognized the blazing red hair and broad smile.

Even Captain Dobey's expression softened a little when he got a good look at his ill detective and harried partner. They stood under the ER bay long enough for Hutch to briefly explain the precious little he knew about the situation. Dobey knew where Hutch preferred to be, and after gruffly demanding a few more details out of the man he thrust a thumb over his shoulder.

"Go be with your partner. I'll take care of Vaughn, and I'll leave your car in the parking garage."

Hutch gave a hasty, but earnest, "Thank you, Captain."

He was through the sliding double doors before Dobey had even opened the back door of the car.

The tale that Hutch eventually worked out was only a little less bizarre than the 'arrest' had been. Mostly it was a fairly honest case of mis-identification. Apparently Merle, the automobile artist who had painted the stripe on Starsky's car to begin with, had gotten a little overzealous with the style shortly after detailing Starsky's Torino, and done a few other cars in the same way. One pinto, the Satellite Sebring and a VW bug, that he could remember.

It was to Vaughn's misfortune that the delinquent owner of the Satellite had a license plate number so similar to the Torino. And after visiting the auto broker to confirm Vaughn's identity and employment, Hutch had to agree that the body types were similar.

On this particular occasion, with Starsky reporting to work despite a raging fever, little food (and certainly none of any nutritional value) in his stomach, and dosed with cold medicine, Vaughn had found it relatively easy to step into the idling Torino at a food stop (the origin of the burrito). Once Starsky had heard the engine of his beloved car revving a little higher than it should have been, he responded instinctively, rushing toward the cherry red tomato and thrusting himself head and shoulders first into the passenger side window.

Somehow that had ended with Starsky dumped in the side alley, his nose bleeding and Vaughn struggling to get the car out of a stalled second. Starsky's solution to regaining his car hadn't been to pull his weapon, identify himself and arrest Vaughn (primarily because in his drug induced stupor, he hadn't brought his gun to work), but to hijack a nearby bulldozer and manipulate the levers until he had swung the bucket, at top speed, into the front of the Torino.

When Starsky woke he claimed that his plan had been to gently set the bucket down on the roof to prevent Vaughn from driving away, then he was going to arrest him. Hutch took a few hours to turn the explanation over in his mind before he finally put that down in the arrest report.

It helped that, by that time, Hutch had caught whatever Starsky had been suffering from, and was on a little bit of medicine of his own.

The report that Dobey got, before both detectives were ordered to stay home for four days until they were healthy and coherent again, even though it had been written by Hutch and not the more flamboyant Starsky, read like a comic strip. Dobey kept it on his desk, waiting until he could have a long conversation with both men about professional courtesy, creative policing, and a little recipe he'd had since he was a boy.

His mama's surefired cure for what ails ya. If he accomplished nothing else, he was absolutely determined to shove it down both their throats until they were healthy to his satisfaction. No matter how long that took.

Dobey Family Recipe

You will need…

-1 medium clove of garlic

-1 lemon

-1 teaspoon of honey

-Warm water

Directions

Crush up the garlic clove and place it in a glass along with the juice from the lemon. Top it off with the honey (you can add more to taste if you like) and then top it off with warm water. Give it a stir, and then drink entirely. Repeat 2-3 times a day for the duration of your symptoms.


	12. Nice Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've been super frustrated with writer's block on an unfinished S&H story and I needed something interesting to do in the meanwhile. This idea came to me while reading someone else's fanfic and I decided to experiment a little with all dialogue vs. no dialogue. As always, I own nothing.

It was one of those days. Bright sun, cool breeze, no work, and the city had settled into a kind of calm that promised him, at the very least, one day of undisturbed relaxation.

He'd begun the day with his partner, but Starsky had made plans with a lady friend, and to see the spark in his eyes, the plans would run through until the following morning. Hutch's lady was out of town, but he was content with the solitude it provided him. He finished a few projects in the house, but couldn't avoid the beauty that the day promised.

Eventually he found himself climbing into his jogging rig and hitting the pavement. Feeling adventurous, Hutch had diverted from his normal route and headed across town for a park that he normally only visited when hunting for known predators.

They only came out at dusk, though, being the type that preferred not to announce their business. Hutch decided that he could reasonably enjoy his run without feeling the need to act in any official capacity. The park was full of low-income families enjoying the luxury of the weather. Hutch smiled softly watching Hispanic mothers sit on benches near the rusting play equipment, chatting while they watched their children play.

A very young mother, still waiting to meet her child, sat under a tree, one hand on her belly, the other propping up a worn paperback. The teenage father sat beside her, picking at a guitar. Both had flowers in their hair.

Hutch shook his head, thinking about the upcoming generation, in development before his very eyes. What would the eighties look like? He wondered. The nineties? The turn of the century? Would he and Starsky even live that long?

Determined to do everything in his power to hold up his end of that particular bargain, Hutch pushed a little harder, leaving the park and heading for the giant drainage canals that separated one side of town from the other. The bridge he chose had plenty of room for pedestrians and vehicles. The pedestrian portion of the bridge was even separated from the roadway with a low concrete barrier.

When the semi hit the roadway, moving at three times the posted speed limit, the thought occurred to Hutch that the driver was deliberately too close to his side of the bridge. His eyes went to the face of the driver, trying to determine if he could be seen, if the driver was in distress, if he should be running to, or away from the semi.

He chose the latter but he chose it too late. The semi was moving too fast and veering too sharply toward the side of the bridge. Just as the front tires jumped the barrier, Hutch leapt onto the metal pipe that ran the length of the bridge wall. Miraculously he kept his footing and managed to put a few feet between himself and the truck before something struck his head.

It might have been a piece of flying concrete, or a part of the front of the truck. His reaction to the pain it caused was enough to throw Hutch off balance and his foot slipped. His left knee came down with bone-cracking force against the pipe, then he was falling. His right hand went out, caught the edge of the bridge wall and held.

Hutch fought the agony suddenly bursting from his left knee and flung his other hand up, forcing his shoulders and biceps into motion.

Over the top edge of his handhold he saw the grill of the truck coming at him, and had to make a decision.

Everyone saw the truck hit the pedestrian barrier. Everyone saw the tires jump the concrete balustrade and the jogger disappearing over the edge of the bridge.

Several people claimed to have seen the body of the jogger splashing into the three feet of water that remained after the last big rain storm.

No one could say who he was. None of them recognized him, and most of their descriptions disagreed with each other on one or two minor details. The cops who arrived to help clean up the mess did a cursory search of the canal under the bridge and found nothing.

A brief search in a row boat turned up no body.

The following morning, when Starsky was awakened by a phone call asking him to report to the scene of a major drug bust, he was told about the unfortunate jogger that had been run off the road by the DUI driver/dealer.

He assisted with the remainder of the neighborhood canvas, finding no one that recognized the man, and no missing persons that matched the conflicting descriptions. In between attempts at doing his job he was fending off increasingly angry calls from Dobey, wanting to know why Hutch wasn't responding to his ringing phone.

Once he was able, Starsky broke free of the crime scene and visited Hutch's apartment. It was 3pm that afternoon before he walked into Hutch's home, found his gun and badge, his leather jacket, his car keys and wallet. All the things that Hutch would have taken with him if he'd gone out of town.

None of the things that Hutch would have taken...if he'd gone out for a jog.

Starsky told himself not to panic, calmly searching with shaking hands through his partner's drawers until he came up minus the gray jogging suit and brown tennis shoes he knew Hutch to prefer.

When he left Hutch's place everything was the same, except for the badge. The weight of it now burned a hole in Starsky's pants pocket.

It took him half-an-hour to convince Dobey of his suspicions and the search for the unknown jogger began anew.

There was a second canvas, two times as big. This began at Hutch's apartment and crossed town, weaving through a park and ending at the canal. Starsky wore a crumpled picture of his partner to tissue paper, folding and unfolding it. Passing it in and out of grease, dirt and sweat covered hands.

He lost more ready cash in one late afternoon than he ever had in Vegas and was losing so badly, had he been in a casino, it would have been shut down by the gaming commission.

At midnight Starsky was walking the length of the canal, a dying flashlight in hand, Huggy Bear somewhere on the opposite side of the wide, concrete valley doing the same. The rest of the cops had been assigned to other duties. Dobey had been trying to call his man in, trying to redirect him away from what most had considered a hopeless cause, at least for a few hours.

He hadn't been trying very hard. Dobey knew better. He knew Starsky wouldn't sleep until Hutch was found, one way or another. Once he was off duty, once he had gone home and hugged his children and kissed his wife, he told them what the day had brought.

His family stood in a circle and prayed, muttering hopeful amen's seconds before Dobey walked back out the door. He found Huggy and Starsky a mile from the closed down bridge and gave Starsky one of the steaming cups of black coffee he'd bought, before driving around the canal and giving the other to Huggy.

To both men he declared that he was going to follow the canal until it terminated in a barrier that Hutch's…that Hutch couldn't simply slip through. Then he was going to meet them in the middle.

It was Huggy that spotted the shoe. Mud coated, the shoe laces tangled in a net bag, the brown tennis shoe should have been impossible to see with only a flashlight beam, but Huggy saw it. It had sent a flash of sickness through his stomach that nearly cost him the burned coffee he'd downed, and he was stumbling down the steep incline screaming for Starsky's attention.

The water level had gone down about a foot, making it possible to ford the canal without risk of being swept away. Starsky hadn't hesitated, splashing through the high, junk-clogged water and snatching the shoe out of Huggy's grip.

It was Hutch's. There was no question. Starsky and Huggy poured over the area, inching through the water and the side tunnels, soaked to the bone before Starsky determined that Hutch wasn't there.

Huggy watched the man, feeling the last bit of his own hope drain away with the waning effects of the coffee. He would mourn, but he knew he could accept Hutch's death. The greater regret was that Starsky wouldn't. For a long moment Huggy was thrust into the future, watching Starsky age before his time, forced into a world without his other half.

Huggy considered himself too self-centered a man to allow so depressing a future and took a deep breath through his nose, nodding to himself with determination. They would find Hutch...one way or another, he decided. The search continued.

By the time the sun rose they'd covered the length of the canal twice. Both Huggy and Starsky were quaking with cold in the cool mist of the morning and Dobey, trying not to curl his lip at the smell wafting through the heat in his car, was ready to force both men into their beds.

They'd been casually ignoring the radio while the two chilled men sucked down hot coffee. All of them froze when the call for an ambulance came in. The address was within two blocks, the subject an unidentified white male.

There was no other description but all three men reacted the same. Dobey raced his sedan through the streets, the bubble flashing over the driver's side door, Starsky and Huggy clinging to anything they could hang onto in the back seat.

The homeless men that had found the John Doe scattered away from the body the moment they saw the car with the flashing light careen around the corner. Starsky was out the door, wet sneakers slipping on the pavement, even before Dobey put the car in park.

Hutch had thrown up on himself and reeked of the vomit and the refuse he'd had a swim in. His left knee was swollen to twice its size and his ankle was blue under the cuff of the pant leg. There was a scabbed over wound on his right brow and someone had strapped his right arm to his chest with a fraying, nylon belt.

His eyes were sunken, the eyelids and the flesh surrounding it glossy and swollen. His lips were blue. He was breathing in shallow gasps that rattled dangerously. Starsky pulled his partner into his arms, pressed him hard against his chest and held him there until the ambulance came.

He didn't notice the blanket around his shoulders until Hutch had disappeared into a treatment room at the hospital. Like waking from a nightmare Starsky blinked and looked around the deserted, sun-yellow hallway, becoming slowly aware:

Of the silence he'd been surrounded by.

Of the discomfort of muck covered clothing that had dried against his skin.

Of the grate in the back of his throat signalling a cold coming on.

Of the heat radiating from his face, the result of two days in the sun, unprotected.

Of the time that had passed without his being awake to notice it.

Of the gap in his consciousness, caused by Hutch's absence.

Starsky got to his feet and felt a hundred pains cry out. He walked stiffly down the hall to the doors of the room Hutch had been wheeled into, he didn't know how long ago. He stared at the barrier for a few minutes before he decided that Hutch needed him, more than he needed him to wait in the hall.

Starsky reached out a blanket covered hand and pushed through the door. He vaguely heard a solid, mechanical tone changing to a steady beep beep beep before he registered the scene. Nurses pumping air, a doctor pumping his chest, an orderly pumping adrenaline and antibiotics through an IV. There was a tube in Hutch's bare chest, pumping light pink fluid out.

All of that had paused temporarily as the beep beep beep continued to ring through the empty air. Then, one by one, each of the medical staff turned to stare at the man still standing half-in, half-out of the room.

The doctor in charge immediately recognized the curly-headed man and his stunned silence shifted. Suddenly he understood how a body, clinically dead with little prognosis for recovery, could so improbably regain a steady sinus rhythm.

A second later that same, doomed man began to breathe on his own and the doctor smiled softly, before he urged his nurse to take care of the worn police detective standing in the doorway.

It took several hours for the two to be reunited, but when they were, both slept soundly for a solid twenty-four hours.

Once awake, Starsky was at Hutch's side constantly and none could move him, even if they wanted to.

Hutch's voice crackled when he woke, his vocal cords strained by the sickness caused by swallowing, trying to breathe and then regurgitating canal water. Starsky heard the sound and stood, ready with a cup of ice chips in one hand, his other resting on Hutch's bare arm.

Blue eyes opened and Starsky smiled.

"Hey Hutch."

"H-"

"Want some ice?"

"Ye-"

"There ya go...only ice for now. Doc says your stomach took a beating after all that run-off you tried to drink. That's taking the natural diet a little far, buddy."

"H-hilariou-"

"Funnier than you. You've been a real drag lately. Left me with nobody to talk to."

"Yvo-Yv-"

"She uh...she didn't much like me ignoring her for two days, or coming back to her soaked in canal water. Go ahead and laugh, Chuckles. Huggy was with me that whole time. He says you owe him a hundred bucks for the shoes he ruined."

"Hug-?"

"Huggy, Dobey, most of the cops in town, every prostitute you've flashed your eyes at, every snitch we've been a little too nice to. Whole city was lookin' for ya."

"Mor-"

"More ice? Here ya go."

"L-look….crap."

"Heh. Where'd I put that mirror? You're laughing. You've got a new addition, pal. Most people won't notice it in that blonde hair of yours but you're sportin' a little gray."

"Wha?"

"Oh yeah, aging before your time. I'm gonna buy the wheel chair we're going to wheel you out of here in...wanna be prepared for the future."

"Over my dea-"

"Yeah…...you tried that too. Doc looked like he'd seen a ghost, or an angel, when you came back."

"Chest….hurts?"

"That's one of the reasons why, anyway. More ice?"

"Yeah."

"You know that doc's gonna give me a hard time if I keep you up any longer but I gotta ask you somethin'."

"What?"

"Why in hell would you go for a jog on that side of town?"

Hutch reached out a hand and pulled his partner's palm in, placing it against the center of his chest and holding it there. He closed his eyes, content with that pressure near his heart and muttered, "S'nice day, Starsk."

As his partner fell asleep Starsky set the cup of melting ice back on the bedside table and felt the strength of his brother's heart beat through the thin hospital gown.

"Today's a better one, partner." Starsky said.


	13. Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing that popped into my head, and my first idea for the Friday prompt for our Starsky and Hutch Fans and Fanfiction group. Made my heart happy. The prompt was:
> 
> In the series, Hutch famously makes the Paul Muni Special for Starsky and we see him preparing a meal for his lady in Survival and pottering about in his kitchen (even if it's only making one of his health shakes). However Starsky *never* cooks for Hutch.  
> Please can you write a story of Starsky cooking for Hutch? What does he make and why?.

Hutch remembered being awakened at 3 am. There had been the knock of a pot or a platter or something falling from a shelf in his living room and a whispered, "ouch!" in response.

Since that long night in the family owned Italian restaurant, and even longer nights that followed in the hospital, and yet longer days on duty by himself, he'd been gradually getting more and more delirious with the lack of sleep and the compounded worry.

The first night they moved Starsky out of the observation room and Hutch had been there to settle him into his private room at the hospital, had been the first night Hutch even considered returning to his own apartment and sleeping a full eight hours or more. He'd even given Starsky a present to keep him occupied. A joke book, full of eyebrow knitting, hard groaning, absolutely horrible jokes and one liners. Just the sort of literature he knew his partner would especially appreciate.

It should have kept Starsky entertained for the brief waking hours, and the long sleeping hours, that Hutch planned to spend in a mini-coma in his own bed.

He'd gone to bed at 8pm. A shockingly early hour that made him feel three times his age.

But right at three...he remembered hearing the knocking, the whispering voice.

He'd lurched to his feet, he was sure, and made it most of the way out of his bedroom, prepared to investigate and kill the disturbance. But the instant recognition of his partner's profile against the light from the front door, and the soft voice telling him to go back to sleep, had transformed him from graceless neanderthal to dreamland-bound human being.

That three am wake up call, and the remarkable calming effect of his partner's voice, were playing like a dream loop over and over again in his mind when the smoke got him up again around 8.

A.M.

12 hours after he'd first fallen asleep.

The smoke wasn't thick but it could be effectively called acrid. It stung at Hutch's nostrils, reminding him of his mother's failed attempts at baking, the first time he tried to cook pizza in the oven without anything under it, and that one science experiment that involved turning the toaster up and burning bread for three hours.

There might have been the faint, delicate aroma of weak coffee under the smoke, and even the crackle of bacon. But the bacon wasn't making a healthy sizzling sound. It was more like a forest fire out of control, complete with loud pops that were followed by gasps, or shouts of pain.

A deductive mind like Hutch's might have concluded reasonably that someone was burning his apartment down, starting with the kitchen, and had decided to keep that information to themselves.

The still-sleeping part of Hutch's mind thought it was admirably kind of the person, keeping their alarm at burning alive to a dull roar.

Then his little loop dream came back to him and Hutch launched upright in his bed so quickly that he, the blankets, and the PJs he was most of the way out of, ended up on the floor with the mattress somehow flipped over on top.

Hutch crawled out from under the mattress, made sure his PJ bottoms were still with him and stormed into his kitchen to see a one-winged egret fighting a pan of bacon grease with a paper towel shield and a plastic spatula.

That, or else Starsky was cooking breakfast.

"Starsky!?"

Starsky let out a yelp of surprise, yanked the cast iron pan from the stove and spilled boiling hot bacon grease across at least two appliances capable of creating fire. One of them obliged and while Hutch scrambled for the fire extinguisher he had always known would be worth the expense, Starsky dumped the pan in the sink and darted his free hand in and out of the flame, finally getting the running tap going.

The lack of grease remaining in the pan made the gush of water less deadly than it could have been and in minutes Hutch had worked the extinguisher, pointed the cone shaped nozzle and doused most of his kitchen in white, Halon foam.

Both men stood panting either side of the river of white for a second, stepping away from the slow seepage of snow like slush.

"You okay?" Hutch asked, eyeing the bright red splotches decorating Starsky's bare arm, the singe marks on his sling, the one tuft of hair in the front that hadn't escaped flame.

"Yeah." Starsky managed, then quietly reached for the tap and shut it off.

"What….what are you doin', Starsky!? Why are you outta the hospital? How did you even get over here?"

Hutch watched his partner's face change. From the shock and relief of not being on fire or trapped in a burning kitchen, Starsky looked over the mess that had been whatever he was cooking and gave a shrug and a half hearted mumble that might have been the start of an explanation. Then he said, "Um.." and adjusted the sling, noticed that it was smoldering a little and leaned back against the dining table, giving Hutch a helpless look.

"Scrambled eggs." He said defeated. "Cause I...it was my fault that we went to that restaurant and...we've been so screwed up the past couple a weeks cause I'm in the hospital, and I wanted to do somethin' nice so I got Huggy to take me to the store and I got you some eggs and I was gonna make 'em and it was gonna be a surprise and then I…" Starsky cut off for a minute, somewhere between hyperventilation and tears. "...set your house on fire."

Starsky might have started coughing, or it may have been the breakdown Hutch was expecting. Either way he stepped over the sloughing mound of Halon and pulled his brother against his chest, carefully wrapping his arms around the brunet.

The wet, coughing fit didn't last long, but Hutch felt Starsky willingly leaning into him and rubbed his back until his lungs eased.

"Hey...listen, Starsk. I'd love to have you cook breakfast...it's a great idea, but not a day after they move you out of isolation."

Blue eyes were peering around his shoulder at the mess that had been made of the kitchen and Hutch drew back, finding himself overjoyed in that moment that he still got to see those bright blues. Starsky gave him a belated sniffle and a look of mild embarrassment that told Hutch that at least some, if not all, of Starsky's decisions could be blamed on pain killers and powerful antibiotics.

This might turn into a fun, drug induced memory for his partner, and not a painful one...once the burns healed, the hair grew back. And Hutch got his oven replaced. And some of the tile. And part of the counter. And his cast iron pan.

"M'sorry, Hutch."

"It's alright."

"Nah, I made a huge mess. It was stupid."

"It was...it was early. But it was a great idea, Starsk, really! Besides…" Hutch said with a smirk. "The coffee made it."

The brilliant, proud beam he got out of his partner made the whole ordeal 100% worth it for Hutch and he returned the grin, feeling a peace in his chest that he hadn't felt in weeks.

Then he burned his hand on the coffee pot.


	14. New Shirt

It started that morning.

Scrambling to get out of the apartment on time Hutch had spilled his shake on the shirt he was wearing and the stain the milk fat left on the cloth looked so much like Hutch had sicked down his front, he had to change it.

It'd been a busy week. A busy year. Hutch didn't have any clean laundry. At least none that he had purchased in the last decade.

The last shirt he had to his name that didn't reek of sweat, gun powder or worse, was a sight to behold. It was white with black polka dots. But not just one kind of polka dot. Three or four sizes of polka dots, grouped into rectangular patches that zigged and zagged and zoomed around the front and back.

Like obsessive compulsive bees, flying in circles.

Hutch kept his last white undershirt on, put the polka dot shirt on over it and hid it as best he could under his leather jacket. He hoped no one would notice. He hoped he could stand having the jacket on all day. He really hoped Starsky would keep his mouth shut, and ran out the door at the sound of the Torino's horn.

As he slid into the passenger seat his partner gave him a look almost immediately but he didn't say anything. Starsky pulled out into traffic, giving occasional glances to his passenger until they got into the heart of the city and were stopped at a traffic light.

"Did you comb your hair different?" Starsky asked.

Hutch gave a surreptitious glance down his front and made sure every black dot was obscured then pushed his lips together, shrugged and said, "No."

As his partner fiddled with his hair in the mirror, Starsky shrugged, gave him one more glance then shook his head and finished the drive to the station.

A few hours later, just before eagle-eyes Starsky spotted a robbery in progress, he had snapped his fingers and blurted, "You're not growin' back that mustache are ya?"

Hutch gave his partner a hurt look and muttered, "I liked the mustache."

Starsky winced theatrically and Hutch rolled his eyes. "No, Starsky. I'm not growing a mustache."

"Huh…"

The robbery took them on a car chase that crossed the city twice before it ended with the criminal's car perched precariously, nose-first on the edge of an overpass. They managed to stop traffic in both directions, and get the crooks out of the car before the '69 Ford Fairlane tipped and crumbled into a mess of steel and loose currency on the road below.

Hutch was cuffing one of them, and Starsky the other, the latter partner keeping a good distance from the edge but still trying to crane his neck to see the damage.

Still, the macabre sight of a once beautiful car cracked to pieces couldn't pull Starsky away from the nagging preoccupation that something was different about his partner.

As they walked the perps back to the Torino Starsky ran his eyes up and down Hutch's profile then finally asked, "You get new shoes?"

Hutch pursed his lips, rolled his eyes and shook his head, determined to start laundry the moment he got home, and stick to it until he had clean clothes enough for the rest of the year.

It got worse at lunch. Starsky wouldn't stop pestering, demanding to know if Hutch had on new underwear, new socks, a new mole…

He finally settled on, "It's a new tattoo. You got a tattoo. Wild man." The accusation came out in the bullpen, in the midst of the busiest shift, at the top of Starsky's considerable volume. "Where'd you get it? Leg? Arm? Chest? Back? Butt cheek? Left butt cheek?"

In the meantime Hutch was boiling. He'd been sucking down water all day to compensate and his bladder was about to explode. He was dying of hunger but hadn't finished the report for the robbery because his partner wouldn't shut up. The rest of the guys in the bullpen were getting a cheap show out of it and seconds before Hutch was afraid his bladder would combust he decided he'd had enough.

Thrusting to his feet Hutch tore off his jacket and turned in a full circle, arms out, angrily accepting the inevitable.

"New shirt, Starsk. I'm wearing a new shirt. A shirt you've never seen before. A shirt I've never seen before. A shirt that I plan never to see again. Okay!?"

The stunned look on his partner's face held for only so long and he burst into teary-eyed laughter, lettuce from his sandwich exploding over his own finished report. To the chorus of guffaws and scattered applause that followed Hutch gave a sarcastic bow, then stormed out of the room to use the john.

He stayed in the bathroom long enough to rip off the damned shirt and bath his face and neck in cold water.

By the time he returned to the bullpen most of the congestion had eased, the men either changing shifts or going back on patrol. Hutch found his partner serenely studying the newspaper when he got back, and noticed a small stack of bills neatly piled on his desk.

The blonde set down the sandwich and chips he'd bought from the cafeteria and pointed at the money. "What's that?"

"Your half of the bet, you gullible blonde beauty." Starsky said from behind the paper.

Hutch glanced around the mostly empty room, then said, "What?"

One corner of the paper curled down a little and Starsky's gleaming eyes peered up at him, his partner not even trying to contain the grin. "Well you...wore the shirt, Hutch...and I got you to show it off. That's double our money right there."

"This shirt…" Hutch asked, his jaw tense, holding up the crumbled, sweat soaked monstrosity. "You put this shirt in my dresser?"

"Yeah." Starsky managed, choking on laughter.

"And you waited, right? Until we got so busy that all I had left was this...this…"

"Oh!" Starsky sighed, his voice still high pitched with laughter. "It worked out perfect…"

"And then you let me...work all morning, sweating my little dots off...for a bet?"

Starsky straightened a little and shrugged, struggling a little harder to contain himself as he settled the paper in his lap. "Hutch...it was...nobody forced you to wear your jacket all day."

Hutch sat down and counted through the money before he tapped the stack of bills into a neat, crisp pile, folded them, and tucked them into his jeans pocket.

He ate his sandwich in total silence, letting his partner squirm uncomfortably for a half hour. He took advantage of the quiet and finished his report, taking it, and his partner's report into Dobey's office. When he came back out Starsky scrambled to his feet, following him.

"Where ya goin'?"

"Shopping." Hutch said, then looked down at the sweat stained white t-shirt he'd been left to wear. "I'm hardly dressed for work, Starsk. Besides you've got a stain on your front there. I'm gonna get you a new shirt."

Starsky stared down at his front, surprised to find that there was in fact a mustard colored smear there. Then he heard the evil cackle coming from the end of the hall and felt a cold chill run down his spine.

"Hutch…"

Another evil laugh echoed toward him and Starsky broke into a worried jog, following his partner out of the precinct.


End file.
